A Magnificent Torso
Evening Music | May 6, 2010
“Spuriouser and spuriouser,” as Alice did not say when wending her way through Wonderland. Mozart’s Concerto for Violin and Piano in D is spurious, though...
Our featured work in our first hour is a work maybe by Mozart, and then again, maybe not! Of a double concerto that Mozart supposedly composed while visiting in Mannheim only 120 bars remain. However, Philip Wilby has “reconstructed” the rest from the Violin Sonata K. 306, which he believes was actually a working model for the incomplete Double Concerto now designated K. Anh. 56. Musicologist Alfred Einstein described the unfinished fragment as a “magnificent torso”; Wilby has added the rest of the body, thereby giving us a beautiful work based on Mozart that we can enjoy for what it isparticularly as played by Midori on violin, Christoph Eschenbach conducting from his piano, and the North German Radio Orchestra.
Charles Tomlinson Griffes would be 120 years old today, had he lived so long. So naturally we have to honor him. “Three Tone Pictures”comprised of ‘The Lake at Evening,’ ‘The Vale of Dreams,’ and ‘Night Winds’are played by pianist Garah Landes in our second hour, as we light candles and drink a toast. Another work you won’t want to miss is “Pano da costa” (Cloth from the coast), commissioned from composer Jon Hassellb by the Kronos Quartet (who can resist them?). Guess who performs it.
Our featured work in our first hour is a work maybe by Mozart, and then again, maybe not! Of a double concerto that Mozart supposedly composed while visiting in Mannheim only 120 bars remain. However, Philip Wilby has “reconstructed” the rest from the Violin Sonata K. 306, which he believes was actually a working model for the incomplete Double Concerto now designated K. Anh. 56. Musicologist Alfred Einstein described the unfinished fragment as a “magnificent torso”; Wilby has added the rest of the body, thereby giving us a beautiful work based on Mozart that we can enjoy for what it isparticularly as played by Midori on violin, Christoph Eschenbach conducting from his piano, and the North German Radio Orchestra.
Charles Tomlinson Griffes would be 120 years old today, had he lived so long. So naturally we have to honor him. “Three Tone Pictures”comprised of ‘The Lake at Evening,’ ‘The Vale of Dreams,’ and ‘Night Winds’are played by pianist Garah Landes in our second hour, as we light candles and drink a toast. Another work you won’t want to miss is “Pano da costa” (Cloth from the coast), commissioned from composer Jon Hassellb by the Kronos Quartet (who can resist them?). Guess who performs it.
