Mozart Piano Concertos No. 24, 25

Words of praise and a great deal of money - but for how long? History has not been kind to the man who posed this question to court organist Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1781, Count Arco, the Master of the Kitchen of Prince Archbishop Colloredo of Salzburg. After all, he sent Mozart tumbling down the stairs with a swift kick in the pants when the musician had the impertinence to hand in his resignation for the fourth or fifth time. The ousting had been preceded by a conversation in which Count Arco vividly described to the servant Mozart the dangers of a freelance career in Vienna. Today we know that Arco was clear-sighted and foresaw Mozart’s future. But Mozart’s immediate wish was to leave Salzburg as quickly as possible.

Indeed, Mozart took in the equivalent of half of his yearly Salzburg salary in one sole engagement at the Austrian imperial court. Moreover, the Viennese were enraptured with Mozart’s virtuosity on the piano. They subscribed to his concerts and even purchased his works by subscription. Unfortunately, their enthusiasm waned, and after four years the Viennese no longer wanted to hear his works. In the end, Mozart could claim only one single subscriber for his piano concerts, Baron van Swieten. Could it be that it was the pianoforte - and not Mozart - which had mesmerized the Viennese? The new-fangled keyboard instrument which was spreading like wildfire across Europe and whose pride of place in every salon bad been ridiculed by Mozart on his visit to Paris in 1778?

In fact, the pianoforte was by that time not so new anymore. Bach had become acquainted with it in 1747 at the court of King Frederick the Great. Though the Silbermann instrument was one of the best, Bach was not particularly enthusiastic about it. Mozart heard the pianoforte in 1765 when he was in London, where the first major works for this instrument had been created by Johann Christian Bach and Muzio Clement. But the honour of having written the first series of concertos for the pianoforte (whose volume did not yet equal that of a modern-day instrument) came to Mozart - even though this instrument was never to become his favourite.

In March 1786, just several weeks before the premiere of his opera, The Marriage of Figaro on 1 May 1786, Mozart completed his sunny Piano Concerto in A major K. 488 (which he entered into his Verzeichnüss on 2 March) and began writing the more darkly coloured Piano Concerto in C minor K. 491 - in great haste, as always in his Viennese years. It was completed on 24 March and premiered at a concert in the Burgtheater on 3 April. The piano part was hastily penned in a sort of musical stenography. Mozart later revised it, which led en divergent readings at several bars in all three movements. At certain passages, the harmonizations of the orchestral part even run counter to those of the soloist. At other times, bars are missing in the orchestral part. (Such “irregularities” can be effortlessly repaired by musicologists.) The skill and ease with which Mozart could improvise ultimately hindered the transmission of the cadenzas. For this recording, the soloist selected and arranged cadenzas written by the great German pianist Edwin Fischer, which are sensitively adapted to the structures of the works.

The work has a quantity of characteristics which make it stand out from the others. The key, for instance: it is the only concerto in a minor key next to the D minor concerto. The 3/4 time in the first movement is found only twice to Mozart’s piano concertos. The size of the orchestra is also remarkable: it is the largest and most colourful of all the piano concertos. In addition to the strings, it features pairs of flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns and trumpets. Kettledrums were added to heighten all this brilliance. The scoring reflects Mozart’s intention of wanting to write not merely a concerto, but also a symphonic work. It is easy to understand why Beethoven admired this work the most along with the D minor concerto. What is less easy to understand is why nearly all musicologists, mutually seeking confirmation for their findings in one another’s writings, keep insisting on the “tragic” spirit of this work. We do not wish to ignore the darker basic mood any more than the author Wolfgang Hildesheimer, Sir Neville Marriner (and, no doubt, the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields) and the soloist Ivan Moravec, but we are much more stirred and invigorated by the work’s vitality and its dancing three-four time.

The first movement is fully under the sway of the first theme, which is stated softly and in unison by the strings. It is a powerfully ascending triad followed by a chain of descending sequences which in their turn are concluded by an upward leap of a diminished seventh. The secondary theme remains little more than a swiftly scurrying episode whenever it appears. The piano must wait 100 bars before it can finally enter, and when it does, then with no less than two new themes. Impatient, as if upset by the piano’s impertinence, the winds and strings soon burst in with the primary theme. The development takes on an equally unexpected turn when the entire orchestra keeps re-forming itself in ever new constellations as it illuminates the original material from every possible rhythmic and harmonic perspective.

The second movement, in E flat major, is a romance in rondo form and in two strophes (A-B-A-C-A-Coda). The secondary themes -in C minor and A flat major - are in a more rapid tempo and express something like restrained sorrow. They thus contrast with the enchanting, tranquil songfulness of the principal theme.

The third movement, whose mood is related to that of the first, consists of a march-like theme stated by the orchestra and six variations whose modifications are sometimes effected by changes in the instrumentation. The variations are supplemented twice with units containing new themes but which are to be understood as something like the variation of a variation. At the beginning, Mozart returns to the thematic material of the first movement by inverting its direction. The C minor triad now descends, and the diminished seventh makes a downward leap. The first variation is entrusted to the piano. The second sets up a dialogue between the strings on the one side, and the winds and piano on the other The third tautens the material through rhythmic dotting, whereby an episode in A flat major (divided between the piano and the winds) provides a momentary slackening of the tension. The fourth variation, again in C minor, focuses on the development of the piano part (while the theme is in the right hand, the left is given much figurative and chordal work) into which another soothing episode (in C major) slips in with new material. Almost as if this were an error, the strings return with an emphatic statement of the theme at the beginning of the fifth variation. The piano weaves figurations around it and the winds introduce caesura. After the solo cadenza, at the beginning of the final variation, the meter switches abruptly from two halves to six eighths and is accompanied by an intensification of the drama. The work ends on an irreconcilable note; it is the only one of Mozart’s concertos en end in the minor mode.

The Piano Concerto in C major K. 503, which temporarily closed the series of the Viennese concertos, was completed on 4 December 1786. It is possible, however, that Mozart wrote the first movement two years earlier Perhaps he interrupted his work on it back then in order to finish the more brilliant and “appealing” C major Concerto K. 467, which he found a chance to perform at a concert in Vienna’s Hoftheater on 10 March 1785.

Once again, Mozart the pianist was being pressed for time by Mozart the composer He was already expected to play the solo part at an Advent concert in Trattner’s Casino on 5 December We know of further performances in Prague, Vienna (7 March 1787) and at Leipzig’s Gewandhaus (1789). By now, the piano concerto form bad lost much of its appeal for Mozart and the Viennese public. Only two more concertos followed the C major: the Concerto in D major K. 536 in 1788, for which Mozart found no more possibilities of performance in Vienna, and the Concerto in B flat major K. 595 of 1791, which he premiered at his last public appearance as a concert pianist at a concert organized by the Viennese clarinettist Joseph Beer on 4 March of that year.

The C major Concerto is the longest of Mozart’s concertos. Responsible for its dazzling brilliance is not only its rich orchestration (only the clarinets are missing in the wind section) but also its use of early composition techniques such as lengthy sequences and strict polyphony (including six independently led contrapuntal parts at the end of the first movement). In addition, there is also a refined key plan which balances the major and minor modes in an elegant manner.

The first movement begins solemnly with a series of tonic and dominant chords from which emerges a motif built of a stepwise progression of seconds. This motif is spun out exhaustively and in constant permutation. The introduction of a secondary theme in C minor ushers in a lengthy orchestral postlude before the piano sets in with a passage that introduces the actual exposition. The solo exposition does not limit itself to repeating the previously presented themes, but spins them out rather randomly before introducing two of its own themes in E flat major (!) and G major. The development - brimming with modulations -and the recapitulation progress without any form-breaking surprises.

The second movement outwardly seems to be cast in a sonata form. The recapitulation, however, is preceded not by a development section, but by an extensive epilogue.

The third movement, a Rondo, unfolds at a leisurely pace. Nevertheless, the soloist finds ample time to display his virtuosity with broad leaps and all manner of figurative runs and passages.

The cadenzas which Ivan Moravec selected and arranged for this recording were written by the frequently underestimated romantic composer Carl Reinecke.