Notes for: August 8, 2006
Mozart was the greatest of concerto composers – he wrote 43 of them, covering every instrument in general use at the time except the cello and the trombone. In comparison, Beethoven wrote only seven concertos and Brahms only four, and those involved only the piano, violin and cello. Of particular importance were the 17 remarkable piano concertos that Mozart wrote during his ten years in Vienna to keep his name before the public.
Within a few months after settling in Vienna in 1781, Mozart had established himself as the best keyboard player in the city. The only challenge came from composer-pianist Muzio Clementi, with whom Mozart competed in an informal contest at the instigation of Emperor Joseph II. While Mozart was judged to have won and Clementi spoke generously of his playing, Mozart, with some ill grace, repeatedly disparaged the Italian pianist in his letters to the family in Salzburg. More importantly, the emperor was highly impressed with Mozart’s skill and continued to speak of the contest for more than a year.
In addition to composing the piano concertos, Mozart sponsored public concerts for their initial performance, thus becoming one of the first of Vienna’s musical entrepreneurs. For the concerts – known as “academies” – Mozart booked the hall, selected the program, hired the musicians, advertised the event, sold the tickets, offered for sale manuscript copies of the new music, and took the profit or loss. All in all, he sponsored 15 such concerts over a five-year period, the first composer to present so many public concerts in Vienna on his own. Further, he performed privately in aristocratic salons at least 18 times in 1784 and five times in 1785.
The first public concert in the series took place on March 3, 1782, possibly at the Burgtheater, the royal court theater still in existence. The emperor attended sitting in his royal box. The program included two piano concertos – the fifth, composed in 1773 but with a new finale, and the concerto we hear this evening composed specifically for that initial concert. Since Mozart was trying to introduce himself as an opera composer, there were also excerpts from Lucio Silla and Idomeneo, and to please the audience an improvised fantasy by the composer.
The new concerto was the third of three – now identified as K. 413, 414 and 415 – that Mozart composed in 1782 and 1783 and then published as a group. In them Mozart strived to achieve a balance between sophisticated composition and public appeal, describing the concertos in a letter to his father as follows:
“These concertos are a happy medium between what is too easy and too difficult; they are very brilliant, pleasing to the ear, and natural without being vapid. There are passages here and there from which connoisseurs alone can derive satisfaction; but these passages are written in such a way that the less learned cannot fail to be pleased, though without knowing why.”
You may be surprised in this evening’s performance of Mozart’s K. 415 to see and hear no wind instruments. Yes, Mozart scored the concerto for two oboes, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets and timpani in addition to the usual strings. However, in announcing the three new concertos in the Wiener Zeitung, he stated that the accompanying instruments could be a string quartet. This evening we hear the latter version, plus a double bass doubling the cello an octave lower to reinforce the bass line. According to Laurie Kennedy, the string writing in K. 415 is unusually rich and striking when not covered by the winds or timpani.
All 17 of Mozart’s Vienna concertos follow the same format, and are in essence dramas in the concert hall, the protagonists being the soloist – Mozart himself – and the other instruments. Thus, in a typical first movement, we hear first the other instruments setting the stage, then the piano taking over, and then a series of dramatic gives-and-takes between these two entities. All this occurs within the conventional pattern of sonata form – the statement, development and restatement of thematic material.
The second and third movements generally tend to be less imposing than the first movements and more diverse in structure. They are characterized, however, by the same dramatic dialogue between the other instruments and the piano.
Within this standardized structure and style, Mozart achieved a remarkable degree of diversity. Thus, the distinctive character of this evening’s concerto is set by the choice of key – C major. In general, Mozart reserved this key for music of a ceremonial, even pompous character, marked by brisk, military rhythms and brilliant passage work. He was to repeat this tonality and character in two later concertos (Nos. 21 and 25) and two symphonies (Nos. 34 and the “Jupiter”).
In this concerto Mozart, here and there, departs from the pattern described above. Thus, the first movement features a mixed bag of thematic ideas. The opening section for the other instruments contains a surprising amount of music that never returns, and after a pause the soloist introduces new material and repeats the first theme for only a few measures. The development, moreover, is concerned largely with the new material although there is a short and effective passage built on the first theme. Again, the pianist opens the recapitulation with its original entry material, and the cadenza, written out by Mozart, contains no reference to the first theme.
For the second movement, Mozart originally intended a serious adagio in C minor, but then abandoned the idea for a quietly flowing andante in F major in simple ABA form. The main theme is ornamented differently each time it reappears. Also listen closely to the other instruments, particularly the interweaving of the second violins and violas at the movement’s opening and the high Gs played by the first violins to start the middle section. The concluding rondo is the most haunting movement. The piano announces the main theme, in 6/8 rhythm; this is repeated by the other instruments, which follow with an attractive five-measure phrase. The tempo changes to 2/4, and the piano presents a melancholy aria in C minor – based on the serious material discarded for the second movement – against a moving background. All of this material is restated in different dress, and the concerto ends on the opening rhythm with the music fading away against murmuring strings and finally a pianissimo drum-roll. There is nothing like it in any other Mozart finale.