Eine kleine Nachtmusik, K. 525

Certain times of day seem to inspire different creative impulses. Morning tends to evoke innocence, renewal, and optimism. Night, of course, adopts a darker tone and becomes the canvas upon which mystery, secrecy, and fantasy take shape. This dichotomy is grossly oversimplistic, of course, but exceptions tend to only enforce a general trend: Night offers a focal point for emotions ranging from loss and longing to trepidation and sheer terror. With these thoughts in mind, this concert surveys “A Little Night Music.” The reference comes from Mozart’s famous Serenade in G major, K. 525, subtitled Eine kleine Nachtmusik.
It would be hard to select a composition by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) more universally recognized than this Serenade. Today we enjoy such music in concert settings, but serenades were originally outdoor social entertainment in 18th-century Vienna, as one contemporary noted:

On the eve of the most common feast-days . . . the streets were fairly swarming with serenading parties . . . However late it is, even at the hour when most people are scurrying home to bed, heads soon appear at the windows and a crowd gathers round the players, applauding, demanding encores and seldom dispersing until the serenade is over—whereupon the band trots off to another district of the city.

No details about a specific setting have been preserved in regard to K. 525. Also lost is an additional Minuet and Trio (which would have preceded the Romanze) referred to by the composer himself but not transmitted with the score after his death. Usually performed by full string orchestra, the reduced string quintet version heard this evening captures Mozart’s brilliant understanding of chamber music textures.
The work breathes with so much rustic energy and good cheer. It reinforces the image we hold of music literally surging from Mozart’s pen without restraint, without need of revision. But while composing the Serenade, this “eternal child” was in a very different station of life. He was 31 years old in summer 1787, a husband and parent, and mourning the death of his own father two months earlier. As the Serenade took shape, Mozart was also involved in composing Don Giovanni, a darker companion to The Marriage of Figaro. He spent several glorious weeks in Prague, where Figaro enjoyed unrivalled popularity. Offers were made to keep Mozart in the Bohemian capital, followed by counteroffers of a position in Vienna. Thus one can find sufficient cause for optimism as an aid to explaining the Serenade’s effervescent charm. Moreover, it is possible that Don Giovanni embraced Mozart’s emotional response to his father’s death, thereby liberating the Serenade to sample the sunnier moods of a work like Figaro.

(c) Jason Stell