Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos. 23 And 24

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Cat No: 8550204

Release Date: 12 January 2000

Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 4891030502048

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: MOZART

Description
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 - 1791)Piano Concerto No.23 in A Major, K. 488 Piano Concerto No.24 in C Minor, K. 491 The solo concerto had become, duringthe eighteenth century, an important vehicle for composer-performers, a form of music thathad developed from the work of Johann Sebastian Bach, through his much admired sons CarlPhilipp Emanuel and Johann Christian, to provide a happy synthesis of solo and orchestralperformance. Mozart w rote his first numbered piano concertos, arrangements derived fromother composers, in 1767, undertaking further arrangements from Johann Christian Bach afew years later. His first attempt at writing a concerto, however, had been at the age offour or five, described by a friend of the family as a smudge of notes, although, hisfather claimed, very correctly composed. In Salzburg as an adolescent Mozart w rote half adozen piano concertos, the last of these for two pianos after his return from Paris. Theremaining seventeen piano concertos were written in Vienna, principally for his own use inthe subscription concerts that he organised there during the last decade of his life.The second half of the eighteenthcentury also brought considerable changes in keyboard instruments, as the harpsichord wasgradually superseded by the fortepiano or pianoforte, with its hammer action, aninstrument capable of dynamic nuances impossible on the older instrument, while thehammer-action clavichord from which the piano developed had too little carrying power forpublic 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 thatmade greater delicacy of articulation possible, among other differences. They seem wellsuited to Mozart's own style of playing, by comparison with which the later virtuosity ofBeethoven seemed to some contemporaries rough and harsh.Mozart completed his Piano Concerto in A major, K. 488, on 2nd March 1786.Like its predecessor in E flat, K. 482, itwas designed for use in a series of three subscription concerts that Mozart had arrangedfor part of the winter season at a time when he was busy with the composition of his firstItalian opera for Vienna, Le nozze di Figaro- the first if we discount the abortive La fintasemplice of 1768. The commission was a distinct honour for a German composer,since the re-established Italian opera was dominated by Italian composers, who might besupposed to have had more skill in the art. Mozart mentions the concerto, among others, ina letter to Sebastian Winter, a former servant in Leopold Mozart's employ, who had enteredthe service of Prince von Forstenberg in Donaueschingen as friseur some twenty yearsearlier, and now sought to acquire compositions by Mozart for his master. He adds, whileseeking a permanent stipend from the prince in return for whatever compositions herequires, that if clarinets are not. available in Donaueschingen the clarinet parts of theA major Concerto may b
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