Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos. 20 And 21

Description

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 - 1791) Piano Concerto No.21 in C Major, K. 467 Piano Concerto No.20 in D Minor, K. 466The solo concerto had become, during the eighteenth century, animportant vehicle for composer-performers, a form of music that had developed from thework of Johann Sebastian Bach, through his much admired sons Carl Philipp Emanuel andJohann Christian, to provide a happy synthesis of solo and orchestral performance. Mozartwrote his first numbered piano concertos, arrangements derived from other composers, in1767, undertaking further arrangements from Johann Christian Bach a few years later. Hisfirst 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 pianoconcertos, the last of these for two pianos after his return from Paris. The remainingseventeen piano concertos were written in Vienna, principally for his own use in thesubscription concerts that he organised there during the last decade of his life. Thesecond half of the eighteenth century also brought considerable changes in keyboardinstruments, as the harpsichord was gradually superseded by the fortepiano or pianoforte,with its hammer action, an instrument capable of dynamic nuances impossible on the olderinstrument, while the hammer-action clavichord from which the piano developed had toolittle carrying power for public performance. The instruments Mozart had in Vienna, by thebest contemporary makers, had a lighter touch than the modern piano, with action andleather-padded hammers that made greater delicacy of articulation possible, among otherdifferences. They seem well suited to Mozart's own style of playing, by comparison withwhich the later virtuosity of Beethoven seemed to some contemporaries rough and harsh.Mozart entered the PianoConcerto in D Minor, K. 466, in his new catalogue of compositions on 10thFebruary, 1785. It received its first performance at the Mehlgrube in Vienna the followingday in a concert at which the composer's father, the Salzburg Vice-Kapellmeister LeopoldMozart, was present.Leopold Mozart sent his daughter a description of the first ofhis son's Lenten subscription concerts, remarking particularly on the fine new concertothat was performed, a work that the copyist was still writing out when he arrived, so thatthere had been no time to rehearse the final rondo. He found his son busy from morning tonight with pupils, composing and concerts, and felt out of it, with so much activity roundhim. Nevertheless he was immensely gratified by Wolfgang's obvious success. The next dayHaydn came to the apartment in Schulerstrasse and Mozart's second group of quartetsdedicated to the older composer were performed, to Haydn's great admiration.The D Minor Piano Concerto,the first of Mozart's piano concertos in a minor key, to be followed a year later by the C Minor Concerto, add