Program Notes

Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848) Introduzione

Born in Bergamo, Donizetti was, along with Gioacchino Rossini and Vincenzo Bellini, on of the leading composers of bel canto opera. He was a significant influencer of Giuseppe Verdi. He was given a full scholarship in the Bergamo Conservatorio, which had been established by the German composer Simon Mayr. Mayr then got him into the Bologna Academy, and there he wrote his first one-act opera, the comedy Il Pigmalione. It was probably never performed during his lifetime.
Nine operas later he moved to Naples to work as resident composer at the Teatro di San Carlo. His comic operas were most popular, and up until 1830 his serious ones didn’t do so well. His opera Anna Bolena was his first successful serious opera, and his historical opera Lucia di Lammermoor, given in Naples in 1835, was also successful.
Censorship in Italy, and especially in Naples, was irritating to Donizetti, so he moved to Paris, where he worked for the next ten years. He was stricken with syphilis, had to be committed to a mental ward, and later died of the disease.

Pietro Nardini  (1722-1793) String Quartet No. 1 in A Major

A composer and violinist who worked in the transition from the Baroque to the Classical eras, Nardini was born in Livorno and at the age of 12 became a pupil of Giuseppe Tartini in Padua. In 1740 he moved to Lucca. He was invited to the court of Maria Theresa in Vienna more than once. In 1762 he moved to Stuttgart, where he joined the court of Charles Eugene, Duke of Württemberg and performed at his summer residence, Ludwigsburg Palace. He was appointed conductor, succeeding Niccolò Jommelli. 

In 1770 he moved back to Italy to assist the suffering Tartini. The next year he became Maestro di Capella in Florence. The rest of his life he stayed at the court of Leopold II, Grand Duke of Tuscany, but performed in Napels, Pisa and Rome. As a friend of Leopold Mozart, he witnessed the arrival of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart on his first visit to Italy and his attempts to find a sustainable position in 1770–1771.

Though Nardini was not a prolific composer, his works are known for their sentimental but melodious tunes and usefulness in technical studies. Among the best known are the Sonata in D major and the Concerto in E minor. He died in Florence on 7 May 1793.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky  (1840-1893) “Souvenir de Florence”  Op. 70

Far better known as one of the greatest symphonists, whose orchestration imagination and abilities were legendary, Tchaikovsky began making up music at the age of four (he and his baby sister “collaborated” on a song about their mother). Though neither parent was a musician, he heard a great deal of music at home. His parents had an orchestrion. This ingenious device, basically a pipe organ activated by cylinders or perforated cards (like a player piano) which was designed to imitate the entire orchestra. It played excerpts from Mozart’s Don Giovanni and pieces by Bellini, Rossini and Donizetti. 

Originally trained as a lawyer, Tchiakovsky’s drive to compose led him to seek out training while making his living as a clerk in the Ministry of Justice. The rest is history. His uncanny ability to infuse his music with intense emotion is unparalleled in 19th century composition

Florence was one of Tchaikovsky’s favorite vacation spots. There he had often stayed at the villa of his benefactor and confidante, Nadezhda von Meck, a wealthy widow who supported him financially on the condition that they have no personal contact. Whenever he stayed at one of her villas, she was invariably absent. 

Tchaikovsky’s last visit to Florence came in 1890. He had already sketched the opening of his “Souvenir” three years earlier but was working principally on his opera “Pique Dame” by 1890. Later that year he completed his sextet in Paris, and a private performance was given. Tchaikovsky was dissatisfied with it and withdrew the work so he could revise it. 

This took longer than he had anticipated. In February of 1891 he visited the United States on a conducting tour, appearing at the opening of Carnegie Hall in New York just after finishing his ballet, “The Nutcracker.”  

By December of that year he finally completed his work on “Souvenir de Florence.” It turned out to be one of his greatest works, and one of very few chamber works he composed. He wrote to his brother Modest, “What a Sextet — and what a fugue at the end —  it’s a pleasure! It is awful how pleased I am with myself; I am embarrassed not by any lack of ideas, but by the novelty of the form.” 

Tchaikovsky dedicated the work to the St. Petersburg Chamber Music Society, which presented its premiere in December of 1892. It was warmly received.