Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos. 13 And 20

Description

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 - 1791)Piano Concerto No.20 in D Minor, K. 466 Piano Concerto No.13 in C Major, K. 415The solo concerto had become, during the eighteenth century, animportant vehicle for composer-performers, a form of music that had developedfrom the work of Johann Sebastian Bach, through his much admired sons CarlPhilipp Emanuel and Johann Christian, to provide a happy synthesis of solo andorchestral performance. Mozart wrote his first numbered piano concertos,arrangements derived from other composers, in 1767, undertaking furtherarrangements from Johann Christian Bach a few years later. His first attempt atwriting a concerto, however, had been at the age of four or five, described bya friend of the family as a smudge of notes, although, his father claimed, verycorrectly composed. In Salzburg as an adolescent Mozart wrote half a dozenpiano concertos, the last of these for two pianos after his return from Paris.The remaining seventeen piano concertos were written in Vienna, principally forhis own use in the subscription concerts that he organised there during thelast decade of his life. The second half of the eighteenth century also broughtconsiderable changes in keyboard instruments, as the harpsichord was graduallysuperseded by the fortepiano or pianoforte, with its hammer action, aninstrument capable of dynamic nuances impossible on the older instrument, whilethe hammer-action clavichord from which the piano developed had too littlecarrying power for public performance. The instruments Mozart had in Vienna, bythe best contemporary makers, had a lighter touch than the modern piano, withaction and leather-padded hammers that made greater delicacy of articulationpossible, among other differences. They seem well suited to Mozart's own styleof playing, by comparison with which the later virtuosity of Beethoven seemedto some contemporaries rough and harsh.Mozart entered the Piano Concerto inD Minor, K. 466, in his new catalogue of compositions on 10thFebruary, 1785. It received its first performance at the Mehlgrube in Viennathe following day in a concert at which the composer's father, the SalzburgVice-Kapellmeister Leopold Mozart, was present.Leopold Mozart sent his daughter a description of the first of hisson's Lenten subscription concerts, remarking particularly on the fine newconcerto that was performed, a work that the copyist was still writing out whenhe arrived, so that there had been no time to rehearse the final rondo. Hefound his son busy from morning to night with pupils, composing and concerts,and felt out of it, with so much activity round him. Nevertheless he wasimmensely gratified by Wolfgang's obvious success. The next day Haydn came tothe apartment in Schulerstrasse and Mozart's second group of quartets dedicatedto 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 yearlater by the C Minor Concerto,adds a new