Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 - 1791)
Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major, K. 467
Piano Concerto No.12 in A Major, K. 414
Piano Concerto No.14 in E Flat Major, K. 449
The solo concerto had become, during the eighteenth century, an
important vehicle for composer-performers, a form of music that had developed
from the work of Johann Sebastian Bach, through his much admired sons Carl
Philipp Emanuel and Johann Christian, to provide a happy synthesis of solo and
orchestral performance. Mozart wrote his first numbered piano concertos,
arrangements derived from other composers, in 1767, undertaking further
arrangements from Johann Christian Bach a few years later. His first attempt at
writing a concerto, however, had been at the age of four or five, described by
a friend of the family as a smudge of notes, although, his father claimed, very
correctly composed. In Salzburg as an adolescent Mozart wrote half a dozen
piano concertos, the last of these for two pianos after his return from Paris.
The remaining seventeen piano concertos were written in Vienna, principally for
his own use in the subscription concerts that he organised there during the
last decade of his life.
The second half of the eighteenth century also brought considerable
changes in keyboard instruments, as the harpsichord was gradually superseded by
the fortepiano or pianoforte, with its hammer action, an instrument capable of
dynamic nuances impossible on the older instrument, while the hammer-action
clavichord from which the piano developed had too little carrying power for
public performance. The instruments Mozart had in Vienna, by the best
contemporary makers, had a lighter touch than the modern piano, with action and
leather-padded hammers that made greater delicacy of articulation possible, among
other differences. They seem weIl suited to Mozart's own style of playing, by
comparison with which the later virtuosity of Beethoven seemed to some
contemporaries rough and harsh.
Mozart's Piano Concerto in C Major,
K. 467, was entered in his catalogue of compositions with the date
9th March, 1785, a month after his D Minor
Concerto. Like its immediate predecessor it is scored for trumpets
and drums, as well as flute, pairs of oboes, bassoons and horns, and strings,
with divided violas. It was first performed by the composer at the fifth of his
Lenten Mehlgrube concerts on 11th March, the day after a concert in the
Burgtheater for which he had used his new fortepiano with an added pedal-board,
an instrument that his father remarks is constantly being taken out of the
house for concerts at the Mehlgrube or in the houses of the aristocracy.
The opening bars of the exposition, played by the strings, are
answered, in military style, by the wind, and there is a second theme of less
significance than a true second subject, which is reserved for the soloist's
exposition. The soloist enters at first with an introduction and brief cadenza,
leading to a trill, while the strings again play the first part of the
principal theme, answered by the piano, which then proceeds to material of its
own. An unexpected foretaste of the great G
Minor Symphony from the soloist leads to the happier mood of the
true second subject, echoed by the woodwind and followed by darker moments in
the central development. The F Major slow movement has won recent fame, by its
use in the film Elvira Madigan,
but is, nevertheless, one of the most beautiful of Mozart's slow movements,
moving in its apparent simplicity and lack of bravura but complex, in fact, in
its harmonic pattern. Trumpets and drums return for the final rondo, its principal theme announced by
the orchestra and repeated by the soloist. The movement provides a relaxation
of mood, a carefully balanced and lighter conclusion to a concerto of much
substance.
Writing to his father in Salzburg three years earlier, on 28th December
1782, Mozart, full of hope and enthusiasm, describes the set of three piano
concertos that he was to announce in January for his proposed subscription
concerts, works that were to be a happy medium between the easy and the
difficult, brilliant and pleasing, without being empty, with elements that
would afford satisfaction not only to the knowledgeable, but provide pleasure
to the less perceptive, although they would not know why. He was busy at the
same time as a teacher and performer, while completing a piano arrangement of
his German opera Die Entführung aus dem
Serail, which had proved very successful when it had been staged at
the Burgtheater in July. At the same time he had started work setting an ode on
Gibraltar, written by a Jesuit, commissioned by a Hungarian lady, and never
completed. On 15th January subscriptions were solicited in the Wiener Zeitung for the three concertos,
with optional wind parts, allowing performance also with the accompaniment of
only a string quartet. Money was slow in coming in, and in April Mozart was
writing to the publisher Sieber
in Paris offering the three concertos, which he claimed could be performed with
full orchestra, the French preference, with oboes and horns, or simply with
four-part string accompaniment. The concertos,
K.413 - 415, were published in 1785 by Artaria in Vienna.
The A Major Concerto, K. 414,
was completed in the autumn of 1782. The date of its first performance is
unknown, although it may have formed part of a concert given by Mozart and his
pupil Josephine von Auernhammer on 3rd November. Two sets of cadenzas survive,
the later versions probably from 1785. The first movement, characteristic of
Mozart at the height of his powers, opens with the principal theme, which the
soloist is later to repeat and develop. The slow movement opens with a theme
borrowed, no doubt in tribute, from Johann Christian Bach, who had died in
London earlier in the year. The D Major theme appears, during the movement, in unusually
full harmony in the solo part, giving it an air of solemnity. The concerto ends
with a rondo, its lively principal theme introduced by the first violins, but
deferred in the solo part until other points have been made.
In February 1784 Mozart began to keep a list of his compositions, the
first entry in his catalogue the E Flat
Major Piano Concerto, K. 449, and the autograph carries the same
date, 9th February. The concerto,
like the first group of three written in Vienna, K. 413 - 415, allows an optional use of wind instruments,
the usual two oboes and two horns and can be played with single strings, or, at
least, only one viola. As Mozart remarked in a letter to his father, such a
work would be possible at home in Salzburg, since wind-players did not often
take part in meetings in Leopold Mozart's house.
The E Flat Concerto, K. 449,
was probably performed for the first time at a concert Mozart gave at
Trattner's rooms in Vienna on 17th March 1784, the first of a series of three
such concerts for the last three Wednesdays of Lent. Both the E Flat Concerto and the G Major, K. 453, were intended for
Mozart's pupil Barbara von Ployer, the daughter of the Salzburg agent in
Vienna.
The three concertos written at this time, K. 449, K. 450 and K. 451, show a development in writing for
the orchestra and in the demands made on the soloist, as well as changes in the
treatment of the form, now handled with increased boldness of invention. The E Flat Concerto touches at once on the key
of C Minor in its opening bars and has its orchestral second subject in the
unusual key of the dominant, B Flat, instead of in the tonic E Flat, a
procedure usually left for the soloist's exposition that follows. The slow
movement, with its two alternating strains, explores strange keys, before the
busy final rondo is introduced by the orchestra.
Jeno Jandó
Jeno Jandó was born at Pécs, in south Hungary, in 1952. He started to
learn the piano when he was seven and later studied at the Ferenc Liszt Academy
of Music under Katalin Nemes and Pál Kadosa, becoming assistant to the latter
on his graduation in 1974. Jandó has won a number of piano competitions in
Hungary and abroad, including first prize in the 1973 Hungarian Piano Concours
and a first prize in the chamber music category at the Sydney International
Piano Competition in 1977. In addition to his many appearances in Hungary, he
has played widely abroad in Eastern and Western Europe, in Canada and in Japan.
He is currently engaged in a project to record all Mozart's piano concertos for
Naxos. Other recordings for the Naxos label include the concertos of Grieg and
Schumann as well as Rachmaninov's second Concerto and Paganini Rhapsody and Beethoven's complete
piano sonatas.
Concentus Hungaricus
The Concentus Hungaricus was established in February 1985 by Peter Popa
and consists of leading mernbers of the Budapest Symphony Orchestra under the
co-leadership of Ildikó Hegyi and Pal Andrassy. The 16 member ensemble has
worked with leading Hungarian and foreign musicians, including Vilmos Tatrai,
Andras Mihaly, Miklás Perenyi, Denes Kovacs, Jeno Jandó, György Pauk and
Viktoria Jagling, and performs frequently at home and abroad. The repertoire of
the group ranges from Purcell and Corelli to Schoenberg, Bartók and Alban Berg,
while recordings include extensive studio work and releases by Hungaroton and
Naxos.
András Ligeti
András Ligeti has been a conductor with the Budapest Symphony Orchestra
since 1985. Born in Pécs in 1953, he went on to study the violin at the Ferenc
Liszt Music School in Budapest, taking his Artist's Diploma in 1976. From that
date until 1980 he was leader of the orchestra of the Hungarian State Opera and
appeared as soloist in a number of European countries, as well as in Canada. He
was a member of the Eder Quartet and leader of the Jeunesse Chamber Ensemble.
In 1980 he won first prize in the Bloomington Sonata Competition, and during
the 1980-1981 season worked under Sir Georg Solti and as a pupil of Karl
Oesterreicher in Vienna. Until his appointment to the Radio Orchestra Ligeti
was a conductor with the State Opera. He has directed performances of a number
of contemporary works, in addition to his experience with the repertoire of the
opera house and his varied career as soloist, chamber musician and orchestral
conductor.