1 LP - 6.43063 AZ - (p) 1984
1 CD - 8.43063 ZK - (p) 1984

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)






Marsch D-dur, KV 335 (320a) Nr. 1
4' 03" A1
Serenade D-dur, KV 320 "Posthorn-Serenade"

47' 51"
- Adagio maestoso - Allegro con spirito
8' 51"
A2
- Menuetto: Allegretto - Trio 4' 08"
A3
- Concertante: Andante grazioso 9' 09"
A4
- Rondeau: Allegro ma non troppo 6' 27"
A5
- Andantino
10' 26"
B1
- Menuetto - Trio I - Trio II *
4' 45"
B2
- Finale: Presto
4' 05"
B3
Marsch D-dur, KV 335 (320a) Nr. 2


- Maestoso assai

4' 04" B4




 
Peter Damm, Posthorn *
Staatskapelle Dresden


Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Dirigent
 
Luogo e data di registrazione
Studio Lukaskirche, Dresda (Germania) - 1984
Registrazione live / studio
studio
Producer / Engineer
Heinrich J. Weritz / Helmut A. Mühle / Martin Fouquè / Michael Brammann
Prima Edizione CD
Teldec - 8.43063 ZK - (1 cd) - 56' 23" - (p) 1984 - DDD
Prima Edizione LP
Teldec - 6.43063 AZ - (1 lp) - 56' 23" - (p) 1984 - Digital
Nota
Co-Produktion mit VEB Deutsche Schallplatten, Berlin/DDR

Notes
The fact that it is not always easy to classify precisely a piece of music within the parameters, part real, part imagined, of biographical and aesthetic stratification, does not necessarily impede interpretation. Indeed, complete factual information concerning the genesis and performance practice, and also the inexhaustible subject of its reception by the public, encourages, if anything, the consolidation of clichés. In some circumstances absolute certainty on the part of musicologists and executants deteriorates into tedious complacency, under the ideological protection of which the salient elements are progressively reduced until in the end even the store of facts becomes limited to a minimum supply of convenient pieces of information.
Mozart completed the great Serenade in D, K. 320, the last in a series of so-called Salzburg serenades, in August 1779. In this case verifiable tradition, hypotheses which, from a musico-historical point of view, seem plausible, and faulty but cherished and, as it were, established opinions appear to balance one another, so that careful investigations are bound to produce new insights. The leading Mozart scholars made life easy for themselves by unanimously stressing the exceptionally elaborate layout of this large-scale work. More conjectural, however, was the precise characterisation of its historical setting. The occasion for which Mozart wrote the seven movements and the significance of the personal “information” which he worked into the composition and with which he enriched it, have remained in the thrilling twilight of anecdotal speculation.
The statement by Mozart’s biographer Franz Xaver Niemetschek (1766-1849) that the serenade was written expressely for name day of Prince Archbishop Colloredo of Salzburg has been rejected for the good reason that this was not celebrated until 30th September. The manner in which Albert Einstein expressed his view of the situation indicates the degree to which the affective “language” of this composition suggests a coded “description” of wellknown personalities of the day or politico-cultural events. But Einstein, too, thought he could detect a reference to Colloredo, “for in the first movement the relationship between Mozart and the Prince Archbishop is depicted in a manner which is, to be sure, merely musical and symbolic, but nevertheless obvious and humorous, The introductory six-bar Adagio maestoso, which returns ‘in tempo’ in the recapitulation, announces, with a high degree of tension, an extremely aggressive Allegro con spirito, the beginning of which could hardly be classified otherwise than as a forerunner of the opening of the first movement of the Prague Symphony - except that this opening is fundamentally ‘galant’ and not yet ‘contrapuntal'. With the second theme the conflict develops into total opposition: the Archbishop counters all Mozart’s pleas with an inflexible 'No'. It is quite in keeping with Mozart’s character to permit the unwitting Archbishop to hear this, and with such a portrait to exact an idealised revenge...”.
One is inclined to accept the essence of Einstein’s interpretation, since there are indeed many passages to be found in this serenade which appear to express, in musical terms, address and reply, the male and female principle, veiled criticism, the nostalgia inherent in the situation and explicit farewell, all in the noble style typical of Mozart. Although one may agree with the casual classification of the Posthorn Serenade as “a worthy representative of the species” (Angermüller) and force it into the incontestably all-embracing straitjacket of the so-called Finalmusiken (serenades played by the students of Salzburg University at the end of the academic year), this is unlikely to satisfy completely a discerning interpreter who has just been overwhelmed by the many levels of the music.
In the contrasting alternation of dancelike, concertante and elegiac movements (or parts of movements) the manner of Mozart’s scoring is particularly noteworthy. There is no mention of cellos, but it is possible that in performance portable instruments were used, capable of being played standing up; these are known to have existed. One reason for the great popularity of the work is the use of a posthorn in the second trio of the penultimate movement (“Menuetto”). The posthorn enjoyed a position in the music and pictorial art of the romantic period, as a synonym for farewell, which has been maintained at the level of viable symbolism to this day, for all that it has had to surrender its acoustic and emotive functions to other instruments. In the music of the 18th century Salzburg attention was time and again focussed on the posthorn. The fact that Mozart incorporated it into this serenade in a manner that, at first blush, seems cheerfully noisy, though its subliminal effect is strangely touching, makes on stop to think and leads one back to the premise that this work contains music of a profoundly biographical character in the context of a farewell event which cannot now be reconstructed. The prirnitiveness of the posthorn’s natural notes enhances the thought-provoking effect on the listener. One is almost inclined to conclude that its simplicity and the ambivalent mood are dependent on one another.
On this record the Posthorn Serenade is framed by two Marches, K. 335 Nos. 1 and 2, which Mozart also composed in early August 1779. The linking of serenades and marches is amply supported, even though it has now become the fashion at concert performances of the Posthorn Serenade not to enlarge still further the substantial dimensions of the work by a quasi-prelude and an “appendix”. However, when the Salzburg musicians processed through the town these marches fulfilled the clearly defined function of providing musical sustenance for their journey.

Peter Cossé
Translation: Lindsay Craig

Nikolaus Harnoncourt (1929-2016)
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