CAMA Presents English Baroque Soloists ⫽ John Eliot Gardiner, conductor ⫽ Tuesday, April 12, 2022 ⫽ The Granada Theatre, Santa Barbara, California ⫽ 7:30PM

assigned to them by a publisher nearly a
century after his death.
The Symphony in E‐flat is unusual,
even a bit weird, in that it does not include
oboes. The orchestra in the late 18th century
was not standardized, but oboes, horns
and bassoons were pretty much standard
equipment. Clarinets were not universally
available and trumpets and timpani were
often left out, as they were in the G‐minor
symphony Mozart wrote after this one.
The oboes’ absence in the Symphony in
E‐flat makes more room in the spotlight for
the clarinets.
The first movement’s slow introduction,
compared to the one from Haydn’s
“Drumroll” Symphony, is normalcy itself:
a traditional grand gesture that tells us
something big is coming. It also introduces
the descending runs in the violins that
lace themselves through the allegro part of
the movement.
The ambling Andante con moto and the
bounding, energetic Minuet are typical of
Mozart’s mature symphonies. The middle
section of the Minuet, with one clarinet
playing a simple but unforgettable little
tune over the other clarinet’s bubbly arpeggios,
would be at home in any of the dances
that Mozart was writing in his part‐time job
as Imperial court chamber composer.
The scrambling finale is almost the opposite
of the Sinfonia concertante’s finale.
Instead of a plethora of melodic ideas, this
finale relies on a single theme, explored and
worked over in exquisite depth. Haydn was
known for such monothematic construction,
and Mozart may have had his older
friend and mentor in mind in this finale. A
Haydnesque sense of mischief is also very
much present, never more apparent than
at the very end, when the theme gets in
the last word, elbowing aside conventional
final chords.
CAMA AT THE GRANADA THEATRE • ENGLISH BAROQUE SOLOISTS
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