Virtuosi Tasmania Inc
Bringing chamber music to regional Tasmania

Program Notes

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

Divertimento KV137
A divertimento is an informal piece of light music. Like the two others from his youthful period, Mozart's 1772 Divertimento in B flat major provided him with his only opportunity to write string chamber music during his Salzburg years. His father Leopold unsuccessfully tried to get the three works published as quartets. Unlike the other two, this divertimento begins at a leisurely pace, yet beneath its graceful measures, tension builds for the exuberant second movement, with its wealth of thematic development. Unlike most divertimenti of the period, this one does not include a minuet. The final movement features a genial dance-like theme.

Vorrei Spiegarvi o Dio KV418
This concert aria for soprano dates from 1783, and is one of Mozart's most delicate and effective, especially in its stunning use of the voice in conjunction with the accompanying instruments. The very delicate orchestral introduction sets the tone of the piece.

Allelujah (from Exsultate Jubilate KV165)
The Exsultate Jubilate is the most famous of Mozart's sacred settings for soprano. Interestingly, it was written not for a woman but for Venanzio Rauzzini, the distinguished castrato and Mozart's leading man in his opera Lucio Silla. Mozart was so impressed by Rauzzini that he set out to make use of his renowned coloratura, range and vocal colour. In the Allelujah, the closing section of the work, the rhythms dance and the voice shines and rejoices as it soars to the final high C. Amazingly, when Mozart wrote the Exsultate, he was still only eighteen.

Georg Friedrich Hdndel (1685-1759)

Harp Concerto in B-flat major (HWV 294)
Händel was born in Halle, Germany, on February 23, 1685, and died in London on April 14, 1759, having in the meantime anglicised his name to George Frideric Handel. The harp concerto was first performed as part of the performance of Alexander's Feast on February 19, 1736.

Lascia ch'io pianga
This beautiful aria is from Rinaldo, the first opera Handel produced for London and the first Italian opera composed specifically for the London stage. It was first performed in Her Majesty's Theatre in Haymarket on February 24, 1711.

Mio Caro Bene
This aria is from Rodelinda. Nominally a tragic opera, its score contains a great deal more vitality and optimism than its close contemporary Tamerlano, a genuinely tragic opera that Handel composed a year earlier in 1724 for exactly the same cast.

Program Notes

A delectable confection of light classics and well loved tunes featuring music by Handel, Mendelssohn, Rossini, Debussy, Joplin, Grainger, Bernstein, Waller, Piazzola and others

Program Notes

Samuel Barber 1910-81

Summer Music for Wind Quintet, Op. 31 (1956)
"While I'm writing for words, then I immerse myself in those words, and I let the music flow out of them. When I write an abstract piano sonata or a concerto, I write what I feel. I'm not a self-conscious composer. It is said I have no style at all, but that doesn't matter. I just go on doing, as they say, my thing. I believe this takes a certain courage." (Samuel Barber - 1971)
Unlike Brahms, chamber music plays a small part in Barber's output. The single movement Summer Music is his only excursion into the realm of the wind quintet. It was written and premiered in Detroit in 1956. It has been described as "neo-impressionist" and is worlds away from the "Serialism" of Schoenberg and the "post-Webern Serialism" which was being embraced by so many composers in the USA and Europe during the 1950's.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 1736-91

Divertimento for Strings K136 No 1 in D major
Allegro
Andante
Presto

Mozart's divertimento are always popular, brimful of joyous music making. While written to accompany aristocratic social functions, they nonetheless display his great genius from beginning to end.

Bohuslav Martinu 1890-1959

Nonet for winds and Strings
Poco Allegro
Andante
Allegretto
The Nonet was inspired by the Czech Nonet, The Chamber Music ensemble of the Czech Philharmonic, an ensemble with a long tradition which is today a well-known representative of Czech Culture and a devoted interpreter of new works of contemporary Czech composers. The work dedicated to the Czech Nonet, was completed in January 1959 in Schonenberg not far from Basle in Switzerland, where Martinu was living at the time. The first public performance of the work was given by the Czech Nonet at the Salzberg Music Festival on July 27 1959.