Vienna 19th Century

This musical evening promises to teleport/teleports us back to Vienna at the turn of the nineteenth century. Aula Simfonia Jakarta, with its classic(?) architecture and seating capacity of more than a thousand, bears resemblances of European concert halls of the period.

Vienna, in the late eighteenth century, was one of the most musically and culturally significant/magnificent cities in Europe. The expansion of musical venues, such as the opera and concert halls, notwithstanding the increasing numbers of private concerts, enabled/allowed townspeople to enjoy and experience the most contemporary music of the time, such as the latest symphonies, concertos, and operas. Music had become popular entertainment. This was a promising development from/compared

492 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791). The strings and bassoon whisper briefly in the opening, creating an atmosphere of suppressed excitement. Soon after, the whole orchestra takes over and exuberantly establishes bustling and celebratory mood. Its grandeur atmosphere is amplified by Mozart’s genius in adding trumpets and drums, on top of the Classical standard orchestration of strings and double woodwinds/pairs of woodwinds/to enhance the winds and strings.

The Figaro overture, which was written only 4-5 hours before its premiere took place at Burgtheater, Vienna in 1786, is considerably one of the greatest overtures ever written. The opera received its Prague premiere in 1787, to which Mozart wrote to Baron Gottfried von Jacquin in Vienna, ‘Here they talk about nothing but “Figaro”. Nothing is played, sung or whistled but

3 in C Minor, Op. 37 was scheduled to be on the same concert with the first symphony in 1800. However, although the earliest sketch was found in Beethoven’s notebook as early as 1796, Beethoven probably could not finish it in time of its scheduled premiere. Subsequently, the premiere finally took place on 5 April 1803 at Theatre an der Wien with Beethoven himself as the soloist, conducting from the keyboard. Even then, Ignaz von Seyfried, Beethoven’s pupil recalled that the master scribbled very little and messy piano parts, resulting him having to rely on Beethoven’s nod and very little clue from the manuscript