Friday Night at the Proms: Mozart's A Major Piano Concerto BBC Proms

Hello. Tonight, works written more than a century apart

by two pianist-composers -

Mozart, the star performer, penning pieces to wow audiences

at his own concerts,

Ravel using the piano as a composing tool

to sketch out his massive orchestral vision.

And we're certainly in good hands with the BBC Symphony Orchestra

under the baton of Spanish conductor Josep Pons.

It's a concert of apparent contrast -

the poised elegance of Mozart in the first half

but there's a sensory overload of Ravel in the second.

But the true picture is a more complex and textured one,

with a melancholy mood overtaking Mozart

for at least the middle movement

of his Piano Concerto No. 23 in A Major,

and a structural discipline underpinning the Dionysian swoon

of Ravel's Daphnis And Chloe.

Mozart was 30 when he wrote this concerto.

It was 1786, he'd moved to Vienna -

the musical capital of the Western world -

from Salzburg five years earlier to go freelance, no patron now,

and he wrote to his father,

"This is very definitely the land of the piano." And, Nicholas,

Mozart's last 17 piano concertos

were written in Vienna, weren't they?

That's right. He was certainly a busy boy during that period.

Unfortunately, me as a left-handed pianist,

Mozart concertos are completely off limits for me.

But I absolutely adore his music

and they're still the real backbone of the concert pianist's life today,

and Mozart really did put the concerto form on the map.

And with this particular concerto,

Mozart's choice of keys contributes to its shifting emotional sound.

It's in A Major, which may have been down to no more than his use of

the then still relatively new instrument, the clarinet, in A,

which had only been around for about 30 years.

And then there's this sister key of F-sharp Minor for the adagio,

a unique choice from Mozart -

nowhere is it the home key for a movement across all his concertos.

And there was this prevailing idea in the Baroque era, wasn't there,

that composing in a particular key

-would inspire a particular mood in the listener?

-That's right.

Even a contemporary of Mozart, called Christian Schubart,

wrote about it in a book, saying,

"The characteristics of different keys..."

He described A Major, saying,

"This key includes declarations of innocent love,

"youthful cheerfulness and trust in God."

He goes on to describe F-sharp Minor of the second movement -

"A gloomy key. It tugs at passion as a dog biting a dress.

"Resentment and discontent are its language."

I will have this image of the dog biting the dress

as I listen to that movement.

There are other unusual things about the concerto too,

one being that the cadenza near the end of the first movement

was written out at the time of its composition.

Why is that significant?

Ordinarily pianists use the cadenza as a time to show off

their virtuosic wizardry at the piano. The cadenza for me

is always a time I get quite nervous, actually,

cos it's a time where the orchestra stops

and you're quite on your own, showing off to the audience.

And what's really special about this concerto

is that Mozart's very specific

as to what he wants the soloist to do here

and he writes it out in full.

There's a kind of theory about this.

I've got a little copy of one of Mozart's manuscripts

for the clarinet part of this concerto.

It's a sketch of his student Barbara Ployer,

she was the daughter of a tax collector in Vienna,

and I love the way that her hair is apparently made up of

little rests and quavers and things.

The idea of this is that Mozart would have written out the cadenza

for her as guidance.

That's right. I mean, it could be that Mozart

had an even higher profile as a teacher and a performer

at the time he was obviously composing.

And we know that Barbara Ployer would have played this cadenza

with flourishes that would probably be too much for us

in the concert hall today.

Tonight, the concerto is being performed by

a highly accomplished student of the piano,

Argentinian-born Ingrid Fliter.

And I'm a huge fan of hers

but I've never heard her play this concerto live.

I went to the BBC's Maida Vale Studios to watch her rehearse

and have a proper pianist-to-pianist chat

ahead of her first-ever Proms appearance.

We have to never forget the reason why we do what we do.

We are not going on stage to show off, to show that we can.

We go on stage

because we have a mission.

-To communicate.

-To communicate music.

Have you always loved Mozart?

Or is it something that's grown on you over time,

as a performer and as a music listener?

I would say that it's a composer, together with Chopin,

that was part of my education since I was a very young age.

And think it was a great choice for my teachers

to give me lots of Mozart and Chopin because they both relate in a way,

they both have this classical soul

and a romantic expression all mixed together.

They all deal... They both deal with beauty, with balance, with harmony.

Um, the sounds that you create in the way you play a phrase,

it's very important. So how to create a singing tone with the piano

is one of the most difficult things to achieve

because the piano naturally doesn't sing.

So you create the illusion.

And for Mozart and for Chopin, for both composers,

it's important to imagine that you are a singer.

When you look at a Mozart concerto or a Mozart solo piece,

do you approach your technique differently?

-There is more space in Chopin for your body participation.

-Mm.

So somehow the arm and the... and the back and your stomach -

everything participates in Chopin.

In Mozart, it's much more, um...

like an arrow, you know,

-um, that goes right into... into the point.

-Yes.

There's no space, for my taste,

for playing around too much

in terms of sound.

You can play with colour a lot.

It is a sunny concerto, Sunny Sunday day concerto,

still there is a veil that covers this happiness over -

melancholy hidden underneath.

-And we confirm this with the second movement.

-Yes.

Incredible F-sharp Minor moment.

But...it moves you deeply.

And I cannot imagine one person

that will not feel touched and moved by it.

I'm sure there won't be a dry eye in the house tomorrow night.

We will see. We will see.

APPLAUSE

Nicholas was talking there

to Ingrid Fliter at the rehearsal studios.

And here she is, coming on now to perform

Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23 in A Major

with the BBC Symphony Orchestra

conducted by Josep Pons.

APPLAUSE ABATES AND CEASES

ORCHESTRA PLAYS: "Piano Concerto No. 23 in A Major" by WA Mozart

LILTING PIANO SOLO

PIANISSIMO

PIANISSIMO WOODWIND

BOLDER PIANO AND STRING RESPONSE

MELANCHOLY TONE

LILTING TONE

MUSIC BUILDS IN VOLUME

CRESCENDOS

SILENCE

MUSIC RECOMMENCES PIANISSIMO

FORTISSIMO

PIANISSIMO

SILENCE

HALTING NOTES

SILENCE

MELANCHOLY TONE

BRIGHTER TONE

MUSIC CEASES

APPLAUSE

MELANCHOLY SOLO PIANO

ORCHESTRA JOINS

SILENCE

MERRY PIANO SOLO

FORTISSIMO

CRESCENDOS AND FADE

MUSIC CEASES

APPLAUSE

CHEERING

Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23, the final rondo

with its invention, boundless energy,

sparkle and uplifting riposte

to the earlier sorrow. What did you think of Ingrid Fliter's performance

there with the BBC Symphony Orchestra

conducted by Josep Pons?

I thought her performance absolutely spellbinding.

Her clarity of her tone

when she was playing was absolutely fantastic.

When she first plays,

she does a kind of gesture with her hands,

like she's almost stroking the keyboard.

And then seems to have a quite relaxed...

and almost understated, yet what a mood change

between the second and the third movement!

What I loved about the third movement there was,

I remember when she said to me how she actually envisages

the orchestra as members and characters of the opera

because, obviously, this was composed at the same time as

Mozart's monumental Marriage Of Figaro.

So Ingrid Fliter can take a well-earned rest now,

and Nicholas and I will be turning our attention to the second half of

tonight's concert with Ravel's Daphnis And Chloe.

But before we immerse ourselves in nymphs and shepherds,

here's a word from fellow presenter Katie Derham

about her show tomorrow night.

I'm going to be discussing the concert you're watching now

and so much more, on Proms Extra tomorrow evening.

My guests on the sofa are the violinist Daniel Hope,

the singer Carolyn Sampson and the pianist Stephen Hough.

And we're going to have a special performance by the Heath Quartet

in the studio as well.

So do join me tomorrow evening over on BBC Two at 8.15.

ORCHESTRA TUNING UP

Katie Derham there.

And the second half of tonight's Prom is a just a few minutes away.

Ravel's Daphnis And Chloe came towards the end of a ten-year period

that was the most productive of the composer's working life.

Music was absolutely flowing out of him, yet he struggled with Daphnis.

It took three years to compose - from 1909 to 1912 -

and, at the same time, he was working on several other pieces

including his Pavane For A Dead Princess

and, by contrast, the Mother Goose Suite.

Part of the reason for the difficult birth of Daphnis And Chloe

could have been that it wasn't Ravel's own idea.

It was commissioned by Diaghilev's Ballet Russes

and the choreography was by the great Russian dancer Fokine,

who had long dreamed of adapting the authentic Greek myth.

Well, Ravel's reference point

was the Greece of nostalgic, 18th-century French art,

so to Fokine it was essentially phoney.

In the event, the ballet was overshadowed, wasn't it,

by the shock value?

There's Debussy's A L'Apres-midi d'Un Faune,

also rooted in Greek mythology,

which premiered just ten days earlier

with daring choreography by Nijinsky,

and Stravinsky's earth-shattering Rite Of Spring

was to come the following year.

That's right. And the Parisian premiere of Daphnis And Chloe

was nearly derailed by a quarrel between

Fokine and Diaghilev over Nijinsky. Diaghilev tried to retaliate

by not giving the ballet enough rehearsal time

and even threatened to cancel it.

It was all very messy and very human.

Well, at the time, Daphnis And Chloe got mixed reviews

lacking the first quality of ballet music - rhythm itself.

And Stravinsky, on the other hand, saying,

"Not only is it Ravel's best work

"but also one of the most beautiful products of all French music."

And the orchestral score has stayed hugely popular.

The music is so exquisite and the scale of its orchestration,

you see all those instruments done, it's immense!

In a way, it's almost surprising to me

-that there was ever a ballet to go with it.

-I know, it's amazing.

It's stunning, and Ravel must've liked it too, as he called it

"a choreographic symphony".

And it really is incredibly musical. It's structured like a symphony.

It's got a small number of recurring themes,

tableaux, textures,

and it's got a lot of layers that are beautifully interwoven.

And it really is a huge piece. I mean,

Ravel never got to write for an ensemble this big again.

It's got harps, a celesta, 15 woodwind, 9 percussionists,

a wind machine and a wordless choir to boot.

And there's something about that scale of orchestration

which I think matters. It's almost filmic in its kind of

widescreen sense.

And there's this wordless choir singing.

And if there's something kind of familiar about it,

if you've seen any of those great Hollywood epic films

of the 1930s and '40s, it's that kind of feel to their music

because a lot of the composers of the generation after Ravel

went to Hollywood and put this kind of orchestration skill

into the scores they wrote there.

Just look a bit at the storyline. It's based on a Greco-Roman

pastoral romance by Longus

and it was set, this story before, by other composers -

of Offenbach and Rousseau -

and it reflects general musical preoccupation,

through the centuries, with Greek mythology.

Well, the plot. Daphnis and Chloe are worshipping the nymphs.

Daphnis and a rival called Dorcan

have a dance-off to win a kiss from Chloe.

Lycaon tries to seduce Daphnis.

Chloe is carried off by pirates.

Daphnis faints and is revived by nymphs and shepherds.

And Chloe is rescued from pirates by Pan, and the lovers are reunited.

And there's just general joyous dancing throughout the whole thing.

Basically, a nymph is nearly raped by a pirate - the end!

And, as you can tell, I'm not big on the plot!

Um, it's pretty dodgy. But the music -

I've seen this at the Proms before - is something else.

APPLAUSE

APPLAUSE CONTINUES

APPLAUSE ABATES AND CEASES

PIANO PLAYS ADAGIO: "Daphnis And Chloe" by Ravel

ORCHESTRA JOINS

BBC SYMPHONY CHORUS VOCALISES ECHOING THE MELODY AND HARMONISING

SILENCE

MUSIC RECOMMENCES

CHORUS JOINS

ORCHESTRA CEASES

CHORUS VOCALISES A LOW, DESCENDING SCALE

CHORUS HARMONISES IN ALTERNATING TONES

CHORUS IN DESCENDING SCALES WITH HARMONIES

ADAGIO DESCENT OF SCALE

CHORUS BUILDS

CHORUS DOLCE

BRASS SECTION JOIN

CHORUS ALONE HARMONISES

BRASS SECTION JOIN

CHORUS CRESCENDOS AND CEASES

CHORUS REJOINS WITH RHYTHMIC VOCALISATION

CRESCENDOS

CHORUS VOCALISES IN LOW HUM

SILENCE

SWEET, TRILLING MUSIC

CHORUS JOINS WITH HARMONISING VOCALISATIONS

FORTISSIMO

CRESCENDOS

PIANISSIMO

MUSIC SWELLS

CRESCENDOS

CHORUS VOCALISES

CHORUS FORTISSIMO

CRESCENDO

CRESCENDOS

CRESCENDOS

MUSIC AND VOCALISATION SWELL AND BUILD

CRESCENDOS

FORTISSIMO

MUSIC CEASES

APPLAUSE

APPLAUSE CONTINUES

Ravel's Daphnis And Chloe.

A rapturous end to what a bacchanal it was there,

performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus,

the conductor Josep Pons.

And sometimes I think that more really is more.

I counted 200, I think,

singers and musicians down there, and it shows.

It really is a whirlwind of a piece. It's absolutely amazing.

And it must be so demanding

for the orchestra to play, yet they seem to make it look so effortless

in some parts and then, you know, so virtuosic in others.

It was really, really wonderful.

I'm just thinking of some of the complex orchestrations,

where you've got the dawn chorus coming up with the sunrise

all evoked on instruments, and yet somehow so real!

And that whirlpool of sound we got at the end there.

Ravel said he ripped it off from Rimsky-Korsakov - Scheherazade.

He said he put it on the piano and just copied it.

NICHOLAS LAUGHS

APPLAUSE CONTINUES

CHEERING

The chorus master, Stephen Jackson there,

being embraced on stage by conductor Josep Pons.

The sound of that wordless choir

was such an integral part of the power of this piece.

I think it really gave the sense of that mystery

and that familiar sound that we have,

you know, from Hollywood films and things,

yet was so mysterious at the same time.

APPLAUSE CONTINUES

Time to go now.

Trailing clouds of glory and dancing to Pan's pipes

as that brings tonight's Prom to a close.

Hopefully you've been as moved and uplifted

by what you've heard as we have,

and as, clearly, the audience here at the Albert Hall have.

You can catch up with performances and much more via the Proms website

and BBC iPlayer,

including an extra-special performance

from tonight's concert -

a world premiere of the BBC Proms commissioned by Jonathan Dove,

Gaia Theory.

Katie Derham will be hosting Proms Extra on BBC Two tomorrow night.

And I'll be back here on BBC Four this time next Friday

with Suzy Klein,

when the programme includes more Ravel

that's very close to my heart - a core part of my own repertoire -

it's his Piano Concerto For The Left Hand.

-Until then, good night.

-Good night.