Serenade 1 • Hans Graf

Serenades • Camerata Salzburg

During the 2013 summer season, the Salzburg Festival revives a tradition initiated in 1921 by Bernhard Paumgartner, the conductor of the Mozarteum Orchestra at the time: the serenades in the Residenz courtyard, a fixed part of the concert programme until 1993. The idea of performing Mozart’s serenades, which he wrote in the employ of the Archbishop, at the same place where he might have conducted their first performances himself, in the courtyard of the Archbishop’s palace, is a typical example for the ideal of the “city as a stage” formulated by the Festival’s founding fathers. In his memoirs, Paumgartner described the special atmosphere of the serenades: “On beautiful nights, the stars could be seen in the dark-blue square of sky above the courtyard, gentle moonlight playing on the pinnacles and façade. The audience stood around in groups, some of them driven close to the orchestra and conductor by curiosity, others wandering about quietly while we played. This was the most beautiful way of performing, and presumably closest to what had taken place two centuries ago at the same place.” The term “serenade” describes not only the late-night musical performances under an open sky which were highly popular during Mozart’s time, but also the works composed for these events: they are suite-like compositions of an “entertaining” character, containing mainly dance movements and occupying a special middle ground between chamber and orchestral music. With his works in this genre, Mozart managed a unique synthesis of entertainment with music that was ambitious in compositional terms. This year, Mozart’s Nacht Musique and his Serenata notturna will be combined with works by Brahms, Bernstein and Britten which are also entitled Serenade, but which make reference to very different aspects of the same term. In vocal music, the “serenade” is an important term, signifying songs or choruses sung for a beloved woman – this is a symbolism surely echoed by Britten’s Serenade for tenor, French horn and strings. The programme of the Festival’s third Serenade will feature vocal serenades performed by the participants of the Young Singers Project, among other works.