The second “Sleigh Ride” on the Dec. 6 BHSO “Holiday Tales” concert is a much more stately-sounding affair, and there is a good reason for that: W.A. Mozart wrote his “Sleigh Ride” for a dance at the royal court in Vienna. Mozart was appointed Imperial Chamber Composer in 1787, and one of his responsibilities was to write music for the various dances and formal balls that were held in the the Hofburg Palace. Between the time of his appointment and his death in 1791 he produced nine sets of German dances, and the “Schlittenfahrt” is the third of the set of three dances in K. 605, composed in early 1791. As the music begins with a dignified fanfare you can easily envision the gentlemen and ladies parading in their winter finery, illuminated by the ballroom fireplaces. And then Mozart has a little fun, adding rustic seasonal delight with the emergence of tuned sleigh bells and solos by a lowly posthorn, the valveless instrument that was used to signal the arrival or departure of a mail coach. The right of way of the hurtling mail coaches was signaled by the posthorn in the same way that sirens now alert travelers to yield the right of way to emergency vehicles. https://youtube/watch?v=0jxHAfz7JOU
Posted on: Sun, 23 Nov 2014 23:04:42 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015