Lamb & Hayward Curator's Series: Shatford, Strauss, Mozart

Programme Notes

Open (2024, world premiere)

ISAAC SHATFORD (b. 1996)

Audience members may recognise Isaac as a regular violinist in the CSO, and may not realise the many layers of versatility beneath the surface. It is not his first foray into writing for orchestra – his A Fleeting Fanfare was premiered by CSO in 2017 and went on to become a finalist in the NZSO’s Todd Corporation Young Composer Awards. He has also won prizes to have works performed by the Dunedin Youth Orchestra (while studying at Otago University towards a Bachelor of Music with first-class Honours in both composition and violin), and NZTrio. Shatford also has extensive experience writing and working in the musical theatre space, and is currently based in Sydney, studying a Graduate Diploma in Violin Performance at the Sydney Conservatorium.

He says of this new commission for the CSO: “Open is such a fabulous word. It’s exciting – an opening is a beginning, an opportunity. It’s terrifying – openness is uncertainty, vulnerability. This piece balances, fleetingly, on that precarious tipping point.”

Open celebrates the virtuosity of a small ensemble, and the individual musicians of the orchestra – “I was performing in the Lamb & Hayward Curator’s Series right when they started, so it’s been a luxury to have that feeling in mind during the process of writing this piece.” And indeed, it is notable how rare it is for a composer to have an intimate knowledge of the feeling of performing in the very series one has been commissioned to write music for. He says “the programming in the Curator’s always felt ambitious, and kept the audience on the edge of their seats being so up close to the action.”

In terms of compositional process, Shatford says he compiled every definition of “open” in the dictionary, shuffled them up, and ordered them into a form that had a story arc: “this way, I felt I could map any tumultuous life experience through the different contexts of the word’s meaning.” This is not to say that we will be told what his story is – perhaps it is merely an invitation to open your ears and minds to your own story.

Horn Concerto No. 1 in E♭ Major, Op. 11 (1883)

RICHARD STRAUSS (1864–1949)

Our very own Principal Horn Emma Eden takes centre stage in Richard Strauss’ ebullient Horn Concerto No. 1. Strauss was only 18 when he began work on this concerto, but his childhood had included a particularly full immersion into the world of the horn – his father Franz Strauss was the notable Principal Horn of the Munich Court Orchestra, a position he held for over 40 years. In an essay, Recollections of my Youth, Strauss wrote “my mother tells of my earliest childhood that I used to react with a smile to the sound of the horn, and with loud crying to the sound of a violin.” And indeed, if you take time to explore any of Richard Strauss’ epic orchestral works that came later in his career, the horn is consistently used to the peak of its capabilities to thrill.

In the score for this concerto, Strauss refers to the Waldhorn, or natural horn, also known as a forest or hunting horn. At the time, horn players (including Richard’s father) were still playing the natural horn, but it was being gradually replaced by instruments with valves. Listeners will certainly hear the likeness to a hunting call from the very first fanfare entry.

This concerto remains very high on the list of most-demanding solo works for the horn, as it uses the highest and lowest notes of the instrument – not only this, but often in extremely quick succession. Strauss had initially asked his father to premiere the work, but Franz practiced for a time and deemed the many high notes too risky for attempting public performance – the premiere was given in 1883 by Gustav Leinhos in Meiningen, Germany, conducted by Hans von Bülow. Bülow is perhaps proof that sometimes promising 18 year olds just need an early advocate – at first he was apparently unimpressed with Strauss, but by the time this Horn Concerto was premiered, word is that he advised a somewhat doubtful publisher to stay with him: “in five years he will make you money.” Strauss went on to write hundreds of successful large-scale works including the likes of Don Juan, Also sprach Zarathustra (made famous by its appearance in Stanley Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey), Ein Heldenleben, Salome, An Alpine Symphony, Four Last Songs, and too many songs and operas to list here – that publisher was extremely fortunate.

The horn is often an instrument assigned the role of the “hero” and from the very first entry of the soloist in this work, we know the horn is the winner of this tale.

Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550 (1788)

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756–1791)

Mozart wrote his first symphony at the age of eight, and had stacked up many more before his death at the age of just 35. His penultimate No. 40 is one of his most popular symphonies, full of dark passion and swagger. The opening melody of this symphony will no doubt be more recognisable than listeners realise – it’s been used many times across film and television soundtracks, and even became an iconic ringtone on the earliest mobile phones.

As is the case with many works from the time, we have been left with more questions than answers when it comes to categorically describing the work and why Mozart made the musical choices that he did. However, one can also descend into the same rabbit hole where many musicologists, conductors, and performers have gone before, on a quest to find out more about this popular work.

The one detail we know for certain is when he wrote it, as Mozart noted this in his diary: 25 July 1788. At the age of 32, he was not to know that he had such limited time left to compose, or that this would be his penultimate symphony. It would be easy to speculate on his choice of the key of G minor – notable is the fact he only wrote two of his 41 symphonies in minor keys, and both in G minor. We can gather from various primary sources that Mozart was not in great health at the time, neither physical nor financial. His wife was also ill, his infant daughter had recently tragically passed, and some of his works had received less than favourable reviews. Perhaps these were some of the reasons that led to his use of the darker minor key.

The composer Robert Schumann, also a music critic, loved this symphony, saying it possessed “a Grecian lightness and grace” that brought him joy when he listened to it – but one could also argue that overall the symphony has real heft and tension, even leaning more towards something more along the lines of what Beethoven would write later. Some have even gone as far as using words like “restlessness” and “brooding intensity” – and Toscanini called it “one of the most darkly tragic pieces ever written.”

The musicologist Alfred Einstein (no relation to Albert – or perhaps a very distant cousin according to some) called the first and last movements “plunges into the abyss of the soul.” One interesting musical detail is the way the symphony opens straight into the gentle first theme – this was a departure for the time, when it was common to begin with a loud introduction, almost as a way to calm the crowd before the piece began. Interestingly, he first wrote the work without clarinet (i.e. flute, two oboes, two bassoons, and two horns, with the string section), then revised the score to give portions of the oboe parts to two clarinets.

Forty years after the work was written, the French musicologist F. J. Fétis wrote “although Mozart has not used formidable forces in his G minor symphony […] the invention that flames in this work, the accents of passion and energy that pervade, and the melancholy colour that dominates it results in one of the most beautiful manifestations of the human spirit.”