MOZART INFRECUENTE

JUPITER KV 551 & GRANDE SESTETTO CONCERTANTE KV 364

• LA TEMPESTAD | SILVIA MÁRQUEZ CHULILLA, arrangement, fortepiano and direction

• ARSIS GPD 5244 2013 | DL HU 66/2013

One of the primary functions of music: transcription as a means of fostering musical exchange. It is this purpose that, surprisingly because it is so uncommon, lies at the heart of this recording of the Salzburg master. In its two works – the Júpiter symphony arranged by S. Márquez and A. Clares, and the Sestetto Concertante in an anonymous arrangement (Vienna, 1808) – the classical harmonies of Mozart's orchestration coexist with the persuasive and enviable texture of this chamber reduction.

The recording, released in the innovative GPD format (Geaster PenDrive) launched by the Arsis label, is completed by the documentary "Recording Mozart: a New Arrangement of Jupiter Symphony" on the first movement of the Júpiter symphony, directed by the filmmaker and photographer Joaquín Clares.

W. A. MOZART (1756 - 1791) Jupiter KV 551. Arrangement of Symphony No. 41, by A. Clares and S. Márquez in the style of J. P. Salomon (2006), for flute, two violins, viola, cello, double bass and fortepiano I. Allegro - II. Andante cantabile - III. Menuetto: Allegretto - IV. Molto allegro. Grande Sestetto Concertante KV 364. Anonymous arrangement of the Sinfonia concertante, Vienna (1808), for two violins, two violas, cello and double bass I. Allegro maestoso - II. Andante - III. Presto. “Recording Mozart. A new arrangement of ‘Jupiter’ Symphony” Video (13:21 min.)

The medium, a custom-designed pendrive with a capacity of 4 GB, includes high-quality audio files and mp3 files, high-definition videos, a photo gallery and texts in several languages.

GPD CONTENTS:

- High-definition recording

- Photo gallery

- Multimedia html and pdf documents

MEDIUM FEATURES:

- High-definition audio and video

- Versions for portable devices

- More than 7 GB of information

- WAV audio quality 24 bit 48 KHz

- MP3 audio 192kbps

- Full HD video 1920x1080, MOV and MP4

- Video 720x400 MP4

«This Mozart Infrecuente proves an excellent introduction to what the production of music for domestic consumption meant in the early years of the nineteenth century, resting as much on perfectly plausible arrangements as on the unquestionable quality of the soloists who make up La Tempestad.»

Pablo J. Vayón | DIARIO DE SEVILLA

«It is an exercise in “historical fiction”, being an arrangement of the Júpiter Symphony made in 2006 just as the famous impresario and arranger, not to mention violinist and composer, Johann Peter Salomon (1745-1815) would have done it in his day. It is always a pleasure to discover old friends dressed in unusual clothes, and all the more so when they are played with the enthusiasm and grace that the members of the ensemble La Tempestad lavish upon them.»

RITMO

«This new version by La Tempestad manages to pour into the performance a transparency in which the five fugal voices of the final movement display themselves with the power and energy that shine throughout the work. We find similar virtues in the version of the Grande Sestetto Concertante.»

Carme Miró | SONOGRAMA MAGAZINE

«Mozart Infrecuente is a highly successful proposal that highlights the remarkable communicative ability of this group, which has taken its name from the intense storm that, accompanied by lightning and thunder, finds its outcome in the rush of emotions.»

Carme Miró | SONOGRAMA MAGAZINE

«These Mozart arrangements are not the work of Salomon or of any other visionary impresario of that era, but of La Tempestad itself. The transcriptions are entirely convincing, but what stands out above all is the formidable performance of La Tempestad.»

Eduardo Torrico | SCHERZO

«If only we could live until there was nothing left to say in music.»

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

I. AN ENORMOUS ABUNDANCE OF EVENTS

«No artist is, throughout the twenty-four hours of his daily round, uninterruptedly an artist.» With this small and subtle warning Stefan Zweig prefaces one of his most famous works, Momentos estelares de la humanidad. Let there be no doubt: all those slivers of history that tell themselves without any need for embellishment, all those events with consequences, which took place on the most unexpected occasions, were not the fruit of their authors' genius… or at least not of a lifelong genius. Perhaps they touched upon it for a fleeting moment of their lives.

Zweig's life was spent between Vienna and Salzburg until the moment he went into exile in Brazil, fleeing Nazism and Hitler. Nourished by these two cities, it is hardly surprising that he fell under the spell of a figure such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, an illustrious citizen of both. A passionate collector, during the last four decades of his hobby Zweig sought out not only characteristic works but those that could be counted among the achievements of their authors' output. Mozart was a lifelong fascination for Zweig, whose collection included compositions by the musician from 1784 until his death in 1791, his marriage contract, five letters and eleven autograph manuscripts, among them the thematic catalogue of his works from 1784 onwards.

How is it possible that he did not devote one of those moments that left their mark on humanity to the Salzburg genius? Surely for that very reason: because of his genius. «The millions of men who make up a people are needed for a single genius to be born. Likewise, millions of hours must pass for one of humanity's stellar moments to occur. But when a genius is born in art, he endures throughout the ages.» Zweig was unable to choose, from among Mozart's many great works, one that would have marked a milestone in History, one that stood out above all the rest. Mozart's prolific and grandiose output in so short a life seemed to want to mock the quotation from Zweig's preface with which we began these notes. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had no place in that book. His work was not one of those dramatically concentrated moments. It was one, then another, then another, all of them scattered across a surprisingly brief span of years on the infinite line of time.

Overwhelmed by the greatness of so much work, amid that «enormous abundance of events» which Zweig attributes to genius, La Tempestad dares to select two of Mozart's achievements and present them in compressed form. Two immortal works composed in less than ten years, and among which lies a great number of masterpieces: his last three symphonies, five of his mature operas and some of the most beautiful piano sonatas. Yet the reduction is not arbitrary but follows, as we shall see, well-established methods. La Tempestad, in the role of the cook, prepares a dish with «events» that promise a rich aroma: quality raw material (nothing less than the Sinfonia concertante K. 364b and the «Júpiter» Symphony K. 551) and a traditional recipe (transcription). In short, concentrated genius.

DIALOGUE AND EXTREMES. SINFONIA CONCERTANTE K. 364b

Monsieur Le Gros has bought the Sinfonia concertante from me. He thinks he is the only one who has it, but he is not: it is still fresh in my head, and as soon as I get home I shall write it down again.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Paris, 3 October 1778)

It is a pity he did not keep his word, because had he done so we would not lament today the loss of the Sinfonia concertante for oboe, clarinet, horn and bassoon K. 297b, to which Mozart referred in this letter to his father, and which remained in Le Gros's hands.

Joseph Le Gros, director of the famous Concerts Spirituels of Paris, had offered Mozart, who was on a European tour between 1777 and 1779, the chance to use the fortepiano in his house for composing. It was probably there that he wrote the Concerto for Flute, Harp and Orchestra K. 299, which also takes the form of a sinfonia concertante. It was a genre very much in vogue, which flourished from the 1760s onwards and enjoyed particular success in Paris, where composers such as Davaux, Le Duc, Saint-Georges, Gossec, Rigel and Cambini ― who wrote more than eighty ― cultivated it. It usually consisted of two or three movements, the first generally in a classical ritornello-sonata form, while the last was a rondo. Johann Christian Bach, whom Mozart deeply admired, also composed fifteen sinfonie concertanti.

Nevertheless, despite his evident confidence in his memory, Mozart decided to write a new piece on his return to Salzburg in 1779, which would mark the culmination of this genre: the Sinfonia concertante for violin and viola in E flat major (K. 364/320d). To the experiments carried out until then were added the influences gathered on the European tour, which included two important cities: Mannheim and Paris. In the first he had the privilege of visiting the court orchestra; and in the second he was able to meet Joseph Boulogne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, a violinist, composer and conductor very active in those years, who conducted and premiered Haydn's Paris symphonies and whose Violin Concerto No. 5 is quoted in Mozart's Sinfonia concertante. The orchestral dynamics of this work reflect the increasingly demanding technical level of the European orchestra of the time.

If the Concerto for Flute and Harp poses a technical challenge for the two soloists, in the Sinfonia concertante K. 364 the two instruments engage in a tireless dialogue that prevails over the undeniable technical demands: a dialogue between themselves and between each of them and the orchestra. The adjective «concertante» takes on meaning in its most widespread sense, that of «to agree, to settle, to decide jointly». Mozart gives equal importance to both instruments. In fact, the viola part is written in D major instead of E flat major, so the instrument must be tuned a semitone higher (scordatura technique) to achieve a brighter sonority. The result is a kind of concentrated showcase of Mozart's character, taken to extremes: the serene joy of the first and third movements (where the two instruments seem to chase one another and play like children) set against the drama and deep introspection of the second, perhaps one of the saddest movements in all of Mozart's work, in which many have wished to see his grief at the recent death of his mother and his disappointment over Aloysia Weber.

WAR, WORLD AND LAW. SYMPHONY «JÚPITER» K. 551

Voi siete un po’ tondo

Mio caro Pompeo

L’usanze del mondo

Andate a studiar

Excerpt from Un bacio in mano, K. 541 by W. A. Mozart

Only ten years after that culmination of a genre halfway between concerto and symphony, Mozart wrote the last of a series of three symphonies composed in rapid succession over a single summer: on 10 August 1788 he finished Symphony No. 41, K. 551, in C major.

Probably owing to the fanfare-like character of the opening, the impresario Johann Peter Salomon (as Vincent and Mary Novello record in their diaries after a visit to Mozart's widow, Constanze) gave it the nickname «Júpiter» in the early nineteenth century. A character that would be maintained throughout the movement, were it not for the appearance in the exposition of a totally contrasting second theme. That theme is none other than Un bacio di mano K. 541, a little operatic arietta that Mozart had composed for the bass Francesco Albertarelli to premiere within Pasquale Anfossi's Le gelosie fortunate on 2 June 1788. In the plot, a gallant man of the world advises another on the dangers of courting young ladies.

This reuse of themes from earlier works was an entirely common practice. The freshness of Un bacio in mano contrasts with the solidity of the fourth movement, which, at the opposite extreme, takes up the Credo motif he had used for the Missa brevis in F major, K. 192. From amorous and earthly adventures we pass to the divine order. If the elegance of the second movement, above its sombre moments, and the chromatic minuet distance us from the Olympus of the god Jupiter, the Finale of this symphony is, to continue with Roman terminology, a cyclopean construction. The five-part fugue is an almost insolent demonstration of compositional mastery, of the most virtuosic artistic skill, of the limits of sonic architecture.

As the writer and editor Ron Drummond suggests, perhaps the title given by Salomon to the symphony is more fitting in reference to the Finale, not because of the appearance of trumpets and fanfares, but because it could be said to embrace in its structure the egalitarian ideas that transformed Europe, for better and for worse, during the Enlightenment; for Jupiter, god of light, sky and time, was also the god of the State, of its welfare and its laws, and therefore represented its ideal condition.

The «Júpiter» Symphony was the last symphonic work by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Perhaps, with remarkable lucidity, he felt that there was finally nothing more to say: struggle, the martial spirit, the world and its customs, desire, love, pain, religion and law, the earthly and the divine order... it was all there. The exultant finale of trumpets and timpani would have been a successful crowning touch for the series of three concerts that Mozart planned to give in Vienna that same autumn. The project failed and we have no record of the premiere of Symphony K. 551, but somehow or other it must have become known, because after the first edition published by André (Offenbach, 1800), arrangements and versions began to circulate that displayed that crowning touch on the most varied stages ― public and private ― down to the present day.

II. TRANSCRIPTIONS AND BORROWINGS

Transcription, the foundation of musical exchange as early as the seventeenth century (as attested by the more than four hundred harpsichord versions, found in different parts of Europe, of over two hundred fragments of operas by Jean-Baptiste Lully), evolved in its makers, its concept and its means. Until the mid-eighteenth century music served other social interests, whether divine worship or background music for meals and games at court. But little by little, musical societies began to emerge that held their concerts, aimed solely at enjoying the music, in small churches or taverns. With the rise of the bourgeoisie, the commercial exploitation of leisure gradually took hold and gained ever greater economic weight. And this exploitation extended also, among other manifestations, to music. The bourgeoisie, together with the nobility, made up the choicest and most numerous part of the audiences at the opera and at public concerts, which were gaining ever more importance in many cities. And, alongside professionals, the bourgeois were the best customers for musical instruments, as well as the main subscribers to periodical music publications. Music had definitively ceased to be the exclusive preserve of princes and aristocrats.

Alongside this, the practice of transcription facilitated an exchange of music between composers, amateurs, countries and instruments that depended on occasional circumstances, on the instruments available and, in many cases, on commercial interests, but which, above all, made it possible to enjoy chamber or orchestral music at home, moving from the concert hall to the domestic sphere.

«RIDOTTE IN CONCERTI». MOZART THE ARRANGER

As an exercise I have written the aria Non so d’onde viene, which Bach composed so beautifully. I did it because I know Bach so well and like the aria so much that I cannot get it out of my head. I wanted to see whether, in spite of that, I was able to compose an aria that was nothing like Bach's. It is not in the least like it, nor do I like it at all.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Mannheim, 28 February 1778)

The aria to which Mozart refers in the letter to his father is No. 294 in the Köchel catalogue. And the Bach he refers to is none other than Johann Christian, «the London Bach», whom Mozart admired and held in the highest esteem.

Wolfgang transcribed (apparently between the ages of 11 and 15) three sonatas from J. C. Bach's Op. 5 (published in 1768), which became the Harpsichord Concertos K. 107. These concertos, whose instrumental disposition respected that of J. C. Bach's own (2 violins, bass and harpsichord), served him as repertoire during his tours when he played in small venues, and also to master the genre before composing his real first keyboard concerto (K. 175 in D major). The original title of the manuscript read: «Tre Sonate del Sgr. Giovanni Bach ridotte in concerti dal Sgr. Amadeo Wolfgango Mozart», which attests to the widespread use of the term «ridotte» (reduced) for the practice of transcription, whether from more to fewer instruments or vice versa, as was the case here. The Salzburg composer's contribution is more visible in the first movements (the cadenza of K. 107/1 is Mozart's own) than in the last, where he limits himself to presenting the original keyboard part with a delicate accompaniment from the strings.

Besides the practice of transcription, Mozart was no stranger to so many other usages common in his day: the frequent use, as we have seen in the «Júpiter», of his own themes written earlier or taken from other composers; the composition or adaptation of keyboard music accompanied by a violin ad libitum for the domestic enjoyment of amateurs; or the replacement of movements of a work according to the audience's reaction once it had been premiered: the orchestral forces of the Concerto K. 175, composed in Salzburg in 1773, consisted of harpsichord, violins I and II, viola, basso, two oboes, two horns, two trumpets and timpani. But the severe writing of the third movement, composed during the period when he was studying counterpoint, can hardly have pleased the Viennese public, so Mozart, without any difficulty, replaced it in 1782 with another movement of entirely different inspiration: the Rondò, allegretto grazioso in D major K. 382, adding a flute.

MOZART «ACCOMODATO»

And it is precisely this second version of the Concerto K. 175 that we find transcribed for two harpsichords, by an anonymous hand, in the Dresden Library, a rich mine of reduced versions of the most important compositions of the day. The city's Elector, Frederick Augustus «the Just», asked his copyist to make arrangements so that he could enjoy them by playing them with the court organist. Among the works «accomodate per due cembali» were compositions by Luigi Boccherini, Joseph Haydn and W. A. Mozart.

As music passed from the gatherings of the court and the salons of the nobles to the music rooms of the bourgeoisie and the enlightened middle class, the level of amateurs and the general love of music grew exponentially. In the years around the turn of the century, public concerts proliferated, organised either by the composer or by the growing number of concert societies. The «galant style», as opposed to the complex counterpoint of earlier music, encouraged the spread of amateur practice, and arrangements of famous works proliferated all over Europe in the early years of the nineteenth century. Publishing houses multiplied, and saw their business grow with publications of varying degrees of difficulty.

Peter Lichtenthal, a doctor, composer and musicologist born in Pressburg (present-day Bratislava) in 1780, settled in Milan in 1810, where he remained until his death. There, faced with the impossibility of hearing Mozart's orchestral works live, he devoted himself with dedication to writing about the man he considered the only universal musical genius and to making numerous transcriptions of his work for trios, quartets and quintets. In addition to the already famous version of the Requiem, Symphonies Nos. 39 and 40 are preserved in the Milan Library in versions for string quartet. But No. 41, which he titled «Grand Sinfonia in C colla Fuga», needed a quintet (two violins, two violas and cello) because of the five voices of the final fugue.

Christopher Hogwood, responsible for the modern edition of this version for string quintet (Edition HH, 2008), lists in his introduction: «The “Jupiter” Symphony was subject to numerous arrangements during the first half of the nineteenth century. In addition to the expected reductions for piano or piano duet, we find Cimador's excellent version for two violins, two violas, cello, double bass and flute (c. 1805) and the adaptations by Hummel and Clementi for piano with flute, violin and cello; in 1848 William Watts published an adaptation for the same combination of instruments, but with a piano part for four hands. There exist some versions for smaller chamber ensembles: the Finale arranged for string quartet (and transposed to D major) can be found in a manuscript in the national museum in Prague (XXVI C 83).»

VIENNA 1808. A GRANDE SESTETTO CONCERTANTE

The last ten years of Mozart's life, his Viennese period, coincided with a part of History teeming with important events, among them the early years of the French Revolution. The ideas of Rousseau, Voltaire, Franklin, Hume, Goethe and Schiller circulated through the salons of a city which, unlike London or Paris, had no true concert hall. In these salons, the basis of musical activity, amateurs from different social strata, including the highest, gave concerts and hired the services of renowned professionals, such as Mozart himself.

Sigmund Anton Steiner, one of these amateur musicians, owner since 1803 of the Wiener Chemische Druckerei, was precisely the person responsible for the 1808 publication of the Grande Sestetto Concertante, an arrangement of the Sinfonia K. 364b. By an unknown author, the Sestetto is written for two violins, two violas and two cellos («Violoncello primo concertante e Violoncello secondo o Contra Basso»). The participation of two viola parts was more than common in Mozart's symphonic works, including the Sinfonia concertante itself.

The first publication of the original version, by Anton André, took place in 1801, and the appearance in Mainz, only a year later, of the first arrangement for piano trio demonstrates the rapid popularity it achieved. If in the orchestral version Mozart gave equal importance to the violin and viola, and subjected them to a constant dialogue, in the Sestetto everyone has something, indeed a great deal, to say. The themes pass from one voice to another, creating countless reflections and kaleidoscopic illusions, which, although it perhaps reflects a taste closer to that chamber music that Mozart so loved and enjoyed at the end of his life, constitutes the principal problem of the arrangement: the fragmentation of phrases into small motifs poses a tremendous difficulty when it comes to building a movement from start to finish. To this horizontal difficulty is added a second, vertical one: the delicate sonic balance between two violins, two violas and two bass instruments sharing the same material, and whose writing was not conceived from the outset as that of a string quartet, for example. And this without taking into account the numerous technical demands the piece makes on each and every performer.

Perhaps this is the reason why we have today a new arrangement for eight parts, made in 1988 by the cellist Ernst Rosenberger and published in Vienna (where else!) by the publisher Wolfgang Kiess: the solo voices, violin and viola, are kept as in the original, and the winds are integrated into the string sextet, whose sole purpose is to accompany the soloists.

LONDON AND THE «SALOMON» SYMPHONIES

We do not find, by contrast, this kind of problem in the brilliant arrangements of Joseph Haydn's twelve London Symphonies made by Johann Peter Salomon, which were the seed of the present recording.

London was home to what is considered the first space dedicated exclusively to music, none other than the Hanover Square Rooms, a hall inaugurated in 1775 by the dancing master Giovanni Gallini, and where Johann Christian Bach and Carl Friedrich Abel gave their successful concert series during the 1770s. In 1776 the already respected violinist Johann Peter Salomon inaugurated a parallel concert series. Years later, on learning of the death of Prince Nikolaus (which occurred in September 1790), Salomon travelled to Vienna to try to persuade the two great masters, Mozart and Haydn, to move to London. He succeeded with the latter, whose success was total and absolute. His two stays in the English capital were, in Haydn's own words, the happiest period of his life, during which he completed the series of his London symphonies, from No. 99 to No. 104. In spite of which, at the end of the 1795 season, he decided to return to his homeland.

What can have been going through J. P. Salomon's mind after his friend Haydn's decision to leave the city that acclaimed him? What would the musician and friend have thought? But... what would the restless businessman have thought, watching his golden goose depart? Salomon, obviously, could not allow the source of his concerts' success to slip through his fingers, and, as he was about to leave London, in August 1795, Joseph Haydn signed with the impresario a contract intended to benefit both and by which he ceded the rights to his first six London symphonies. A few months later he sent from Vienna the contract for the next six, so that Salomon thus obtained the exploitation rights to all twelve.

With a clear commercial instinct, he decided to make a first adaptation of the symphonies for fortepiano with the ad libitum accompaniment of a violin or cello. Not entirely convinced by this first version, insufficient in its texture, Salomon announced in 1798 the publication of a new arrangement, this time for two violins, flute, viola and cello, with ad libitum fortepiano accompaniment. Now the richness of detail multiplied and, with reduced forces, very high degrees of sonic fidelity to the original were achieved, while remaining a far more accessible ensemble than the orchestral one. J. P. Salomon's business activity has often made people forget his musical ability: the arrangements are brilliant, the distribution of roles meticulously studied. And the possibility of performing these arrangements with or without fortepiano was another shrewd commercial device, since although the instrument was gaining converts by leaps and bounds, in the early days of its expansion it was not within reach of every pocket.

In 1780 a simple Broadwood could be bought for twenty guineas, plus another for packing and delivery. A generation later (as happens today with digital technology), economies of scale and a significant improvement in communications had brought the price down to eighteen pounds, shipping included. With the advances that makers such as Zumpe, Broadwood and Clementi were introducing and the impetus of composers such as Johann Christian Bach and Mozart himself, the fortepiano became the instrument that democratised music. A student could draw pleasant sounds from it from the first day, unlike what happened with a violin. Once he had learnt the rudiments, the pianist could entertain family and friends with dance music or transcriptions of arias from the latest operatic hit.

III. THE «JÚPITER» OF LA TEMPESTAD

In the ten years following the publication of Salomon's arrangements, the square fortepiano took up its position in London homes until it became one more of their inhabitants. Undoubtedly thanks to this, the version of the 1808 arrangement has come down to us with a realised basso continuo part, from which we get a clear idea of the ease with which amateurs could enjoy this great music... as we in La Tempestad have done during the numerous concerts devoted to Salomon's Symphonies, in which that basso continuo provided the touch that turned the chamber sonority into full, orchestral versions. Though only after many, many tunings, since our fortepiano, far from being peacefully settled in the warmth of a rug, has travelled with us, suffering countless changes in atmospheric conditions. Perhaps it was between one of those tunings and the next that the idea of a new arrangement of the «Júpiter» arose. For it was after one of our concerts with Haydn in the beautiful setting of Bolea that Fernando and Pilar, creators of the Arsis label, conceived the idea. In the manner of a Sigmund Steiner, aware of the impossibility of bringing a full orchestra to enjoy the «Júpiter» and having seen the result of Salomon's arrangements, the solution was there, within reach: to commission a new reduction of the orchestral score, this time for the very instruments they had in front of them.

During the four years before Mozart's death in 1791, offers to bring him to London following Haydn's successful footsteps were numerous, beginning, of course, with that of J. P. Salomon. It was not to be. And we were delighted by the idea of a new transcription in Salomon's style, convinced that, had the deal been struck, the «Júpiter» Symphony would have been one of the impresario's first targets. We also found it interesting to contribute our own grain of sand, a twenty-first-century sand, to a practice that we have seen continue unbroken through the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Why the Salomon model? Because as an excellent musician, impresario and traveller he surely knew the sextets of Boccherini and Cambini, their sonic result and their possible shortcomings, and when it came to transcribing the London Symphonies he took care to find the instrumental combination that best suited the original work with the fewest possible elements. We, as musicians, play with the advantage of having that path already traced, of knowing Salomon's arrangements and having savoured them from the inside, of having the facsimiles. Perhaps all this takes away something of the freshness that runs through the centuries and reaches us from those nineteenth-century amateur gatherings. But thanks to this, our arrangement of the «Júpiter» Symphony was revised and played several times before its final version. Each musician was able to check whether the writing worked for their instrument, whether or not there were incongruities, whether the voice that had just played the same theme had done so differently, whether the printed notes corresponded or not with the logic of a work that is, moreover, extremely familiar to a classical musician of today... or whether the horns were missing!

How are the parts arranged? In general terms, the flute performs the function of the various wind instruments in the orchestral score, both in the small dialogues and in sustained notes. The first violin remains faithful to the original, while the second moves away from its usual role to form wind duets with the flute or to replace other instruments. When this happens, the viola, the most versatile instrument in the end, takes on the role of the second violin; but it can also become a bassoon at a given moment, or horns, playing at war from a distance. The double bass adds two functions to the original orchestral part: that of replacing the cello when the latter is occupied with higher voices, or that of percussion in complete conjunction with the fortepiano. The latter, which amalgamates the sonority of the ensemble in a surprising way, fulfils exactly the same role it had in the 1808 London edition of Salomon's arrangements (a basso continuo already far from eighteenth-century practice, halfway between baroque figured bass and orchestral reduction). But given the abundance of interesting material in Mozart's orchestration, it adds touches in the manner of small comments from violins or oboes wherever the rest of the sextet is busy with essential material, or even reinforces, together with the double bass, timpani moments that impart the percussive character that would otherwise be lacking.

Mozart infrecuente offers today the equivalent, in the form of a transcription, of an eighteenth-century record wrapped in a twenty-first-century medium. It is illuminating to remember that the first orchestral recordings posed tremendous balance problems that forced the forces to be reduced drastically. Symphonies were often recorded with a single viola, and one double bass fulfilled the functions of an entire section of cellos. Tim Blanning offers a clear example in his book El triunfo de la música: «When in 1914 Arthur Nikisch made the first complete recording of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony with the Berlin Philharmonic he was obliged to dispense with the double basses and the timpani and to play neither pianissimo nor forte.»

AND SO, MOZART... INFREQUENT?

Well, yes. Infrequent, for example, because we do want to use the double bass, and despite the reduction in forces it seems to us essential to achieve the depth of the symphonic works. And not only in the «Júpiter». The very few existing recordings of the Grande Sestetto Concertante are made with two cellos, and we, taking advantage of our usual ensemble and aware of the balance complications this decision could entail, have opted for the second of the possibilities that the title of the edition offered: “violoncello o contrabasso”.

Infrequent because, although recent research places Symphony No. 41 as the Mozart work most performed by orchestras today, it is not common to hear it in chamber format, despite the evident popularity of all the arrangements to which it has been subjected.

Infrequent because we pay homage to J. P. Salomon by following his craftsmanship, taking him as a model, acknowledging his good work and his artistic background, in the knowledge that his arrangements of Haydn's symphonies are among the most complete and respectful of this centuries-old tradition.

Infrequent because, devoted as we are to historical performance, we had yet to enjoy one of the most common customs of the early nineteenth century. It is true that the practice of improvisation, as well as experimentation with different instrumental combinations, already appears frequently on early music stages. But not so the transcription of classical symphonies or opera music of this period, carried out by the performers themselves.

And, if we may say so, infrequent even in an anachronistic way, since two hundred years ago the public expected to hear new music, pieces that had been written at most ten years earlier. Would it occur to us today to transcribe the latest brilliant premieres of our contemporary composers in order to take them home? In our view, contemporary composition would lose its essence if we reduced its instrumentation, if we made it lose the play of colours, the different sonorities.

It is precisely the evolution of technology and recording media that has ended up standardising the sound of orchestral music, has in a way sacralised instrumentation, a concept entirely unthinkable in the eighteenth century. What would Haydn not have done had he had another orchestra at his Esterházy palace? Prepare to listen in the European fashion of the early nineteenth century, in one of those salons, with one of those many instrumental combinations that made up for the reduction in numbers with variety of nuance and rich individual play, without losing one iota of musical invention, of sonic architecture.

A NOD TO LA TEMPESTAD

From a perfect stranger, Johann Peter Salomon came to sit at our table day in, day out. The years spent on his arrangements of Haydn's London Symphonies turned our ignorance into admiration and gratitude. It is as if, once that undertaking was finished, he had wanted to round off the accumulation of circumstances that have brought us here, being the very one who gave the name «Júpiter» to Symphony No. 41. Thank you again, Mr. Salomon. For us, La Tempestad, of all people, it comes as a perfect fit. It seems to us a fair decision. Wise. Balanced. Paradoxically, and returning the favour with a little play on words, it seems to us a «Solomonic» decision.

It does not seem wrong to us, no, that Jupiter, lord of Olympus, king of heaven and earth, of gods and men, who with a gesture could make the world tremble, should give his name to the symphony that is the cause of so many sensations around us.

To attain his status, Jupiter had to dethrone Cronus, a cruel and tempestuous force of chaos and disorder ―well, there you are, «tempestuous»―, under whose rule beings are born and die without any order at all (let us remember that Cronus devours his children). The Romans would call him Saturn. By dethroning his father, Jupiter would definitively order the universe, become the divine principle of spirituality, found the new order of Olympus, and establish the basis of the relations between all beings. And only on a very, very small scale, and being the Tempest that we are, do we like to imagine ourselves as those monstrous one-eyed Cyclopes who, forging thunderbolts, helped him to dethrone Cronus; and to enjoy a monumental fugue that we imagine as a construction carried out with incessant labour at a frenzied pace, which, in reaching absolute order, makes us lose all sense of time...

Silvia Márquez Chulilla

Algezares, the last day of 2012