Wolfgang
Amadeus Mozart (1756 - 1791)
Piano
Concerto in F Major, K. 459
Piano Concerto in B Flat Major, K. 238
Piano Concerto in C Major, K. 246 (Lützow Concerto)
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 in
1779. 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instruments, as the harpsichord was gradually superseded by the fortepiano or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 well suited to Mozart's own style of playing, by comparison with
which the later virtuosity of Beethoven seemed to some contemporaries rough and
harsh.
The Piano
Concerto in F major, K. 459, was completed on 11th December, 1784 and seems
to have been designed for the composer's own use. In his own catalogue Mozart
describes the work as scored also for trumpets and drums, in addition to flute,
pairs of oboes, bassoons and horns, and strings, but trumpet and drum parts are
lost, if they ever existed, for a work in a key that is not, for Mozart, a
trumpet key. Mozart played the concerto at the concert he organised in
Frankfurt for the coronation there of the new Emperor Leopold II on 15th
October, 1790. This and the Concerto in D major, K. 537, played on the
same occasion, have both been given the title Coronation Concerto,
although English-speakers have preferred to bestow the title only on the later
work.
The first
movement of the concerto opens with a familiar rhythm, announced first by flute
and strings, joined in immediate repetition by the other wind instruments. The
same theme introduces the soloist, who then accompanies its repetition by oboe
and bassoon. Through the central development of the material the characteristic
dotted rhythm of the opening reappears in a movement that allows the soloist
dramatic triplet passage work as a salient feature. The C major second movement
is marked Allegretto, instead of the usual Andante, its principal theme,
announced at length by the orchestra, capped by a shorter passage, at first in
G minor, and after the repetition of the principal theme, in C minor. The
soloist introduces the final movement, a modification of the customary rondo
form, in which a contrapuntal element appears in contrast to much of the
surrounding material, forming one of the most impressive of Mozart's concerto
movements, foreshadowing something of what was to come.
The Concerto
in B flat major, K. 238, was written in Salzburg in January 1776. In
December 1774 Mozart had travelled to Munich with his father to prepare
performances of a newly commissioned opera, La finta giardiniera, for
the carnival season. The following March they returned to Salzburg. Something
of Mozart's discontent in Salzburg is revealed in a letter written in September
1775 to the great Italian composer, theorist and teacher Padre Martini, in
which he laments the lack of singers for the theatre, the restrictions imposed
on church music by the reformist Archbishop and w hat he describes as the
struggling existence of music.
In 1775 Mozart
had written the two violin Concertone and a group of five violin concertos for
Salzburg. The B flat Piano Concerto, which followed, shows traces of
these concertos, not least in its increasing richness of invention. It was
intended presumably for his own use or for that of his sister and formed part
of his repertoire when he left Salzburg in September 1777 on his journey to
Paris, when he is known to have played it in Munich, Augsburg and Mannheim. The
concerto is scored for a pair of oboes, replaced by flutes in the slow
movement, and a pair of horns, with the usual strings. The first movement,
marked Allegro aperto, an instruction found in the A major Violin
Concerto of December 1775, opens with the customary orchestral exposition,
introducing the two themes that are later to be repeated and developed by the
soloist, for whom Mozart's written cadenza is preserved. The slow movement, in
E flat, otters a principal theme characteristic of the composer in its more
poignant connotations, here only implied in passing. The concerto ends with a
cheerful rondo introducing an episode that suggests more popular music, a
counterpart of the Turkish intrusion into the finale of the A major Violin
Concerto.
Mozart wrote
his Concerto in C major, K. 246 in April 1776 for Countess Antonia von
Lützow, a niece of the Archbishop of Salzburg and wife of the commandant of the
castle of Hohensalzburg, a woman he later described as high and mighty. The
Countess was probably a pupil of Leopold Mozart. Mozart made use of the
concerto during his journey to Mannheim and Paris in 1777 and 1778 and played
it himself in Munich in October 1777, including in his concert there two other
concertos, K. 238 and K. 271. It seems he performed the same
concertos as a group in Paris. Nevertheless the C major concerto served well
enough as material for pupils and in Mannheim it was performed twice by Therese
Pierron Serrarius, daughter of the Mannheim Privy Court Councillor, in whose
house he was lodging. Mozart was well enough pleased with his pupil, "unsere
Haus-Nymphe", but less happy with an attempt by the Abbé Vogler to
sight-read the work, the first movement prestissimo, the second allegro and the
rondeau prestississimo, with arbitrary changes in harmony and melody. The
orchestra opens the concerto, which is scored for the usual oboes, horns and
strings, with the customary declaration of the first theme, later taken up by
the soloist, who adds a further theme before proceeding to the second subject.
The F major Andante provides an opportunity for subtle interplay between
soloist and orchestra, and the former leads the way into a final rondo, in
which the principal theme has all the simple elegance of a minuet. Three sets
of cadenzas survive for the first two movements, the first two, at least,
designed for the use of earlier pupils, and the third no doubt for use in
Vienna in 1782.
Jendö Jandó
The Hungarian pianist Jendö Jandó has won a number of piano competitions in
Hungary and abroad, including first prize in the 1973 Hungarian Piano Conoours
and a first prize in the chamber music category at the Sydney International
Piano Competition in 1977. He has recorded for Naxos all the piano concertos of
Mozart. 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.