MOZART, W.A : Piano Concertos Nos. 9 and 27 (Jandó, Concentus Hungaricus, A. Ligeti) (1991) FLAC (tracks), lossless

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 - 1791)

Piano Concerto No.9 in E Flat Major, K. 271 (Jeunehomme Concerto)
Piano Concerto No.27 in B Flat Major, K. 595

The solo concerto had become, during the eighteenth century, an important vehicle for composer-performers, a form of music that had developed from !he work of Johann Sebastian Bach, through his much admired sons Carl Philipp Emanuel and Johann Christian, to provide a happy synthesis of solo and orchestral performance. Mozart w rote his first numbered piano concertos, arrangements derived from other composers, in 1767, undertaking further arrangements from Johann Christian Bach a few years later. His first 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 piano concertos, the last of these for two pianos after his return from Paris. The remaining seventeen piano concertos were written in Vienna, principally for his own use in the subscription concerts that he organised there during the last decade of his life.

The second half of the eighteenth century also brought considerable changes in keyboard instruments, as the harpsichord was gradually superseded by the fortepiano or pianoforte, with its hammer action, an instrument capable of dynamic nuances impossible on the older instrument, while the hammer-action clavichord from which the piano developed had too little carrying power for public 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 that made greater delicacy of articulation possible, among other differences. They seem well suited to Mozart's own style of playing, by comparison with which the later virtuosity of Beethoven seemed to some contemporaries rough and harsh.

The so-called Jeunehomme Concerto was written in Salzburg in January 1777 for the French virtuosa, Mademoiselle Jeunehomme, whose name appears in various misspellings in the Mozart family correspondence. She had visited Salzburg at the end of 1776, the occasion for the composition of the concerto, and Mozart was to renew the acquaintance in Paris in the following year. He made use of the concerto, a particularly brilliant work, himself, and played it in Munich and Paris and probably at his first public concert in Vienna in 1781. Three sets of cadenzas survive for the third movement and two for the first and second, the later ones written for Vienna.

There is a change in opening procedure in the E flat Concerto, with the soloist entering briefly in the second bar, instead of waiting until the end of the orchestral exposition. The appearance is a brief one, followed by a gentler theme from the orchestra, which, as usual, consists of strings with pairs of oboes and horns. The opening figure is heard again, after which the soloist enters with par1 of a new theme, before going on to develop the first subject that we have heard and offer its own version of the second theme. Elements of themes already heard form the substance of the central development, which is duly followed by a modified recapitulation, including a cadenza by the composer.

The second movement of the concerto, in C minor, reminds us of the essentially operatic vocal style of much of Mozart's music. Here, in the first theme, there are obvious affinities to operatic recitative, here tragic in cast, with all the deep melancholy that the choice of key implies. The mood changes into E flat major, to be replaced again by the prevailing feeling of sadness. This is quickly dispelled by the opening of the final rondo, although the movement is not without its moments of drama.

Concerto in B flat major, K. 595, completed on 5th January, 1791. Mozart played the concerto at a concer1 for the clarinet virtuoso Joseph Bähr on 4th March, given in a room belonging to the restaurateur Jahn. The year, never1heless, was a busy one and seemed likely to bring a turn for the better in Mozart's fortunes. Emanuel Schikaneder, an actor-manager well known for his Shakespearean performances, had devised a magic German opera, Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute), which was staged in the autumn at the suburban Theater an der Wieden, to be described by the critical diarist Count von Zinzendorf as "une farce incroyable". Whatever its dramatic peculiarities, the music was much enjoyed by the general public. There had been a commission also from Prague for an opera seria, La clemenza di Tito, to celebrate the coronation in that city of the Emperor Leopold II. The work was performed there in early September to the disgust of the Empress, Who had little time for such "porchería tedesca", and of Count von Zinzendorf, Who was bored. The same year Mozart began his Requiem, a work that he never finished, and wrote his Clarinet Concerto and Clarinet Quintet.

The B flat Piano Concerto is scored for an orchestra without trumpets and drums. After the orchestral exposition the soloist enters with the first subject and goes on to a passage in F minor, before the F major second subject emerges. There is a central development of inventive freedom before the recapitulation, with its composed cadenza. The soloist opens the Larghetto, followed by the orchestra, after which the piano adds an extension of the theme in music essentially in the form of a rondo, characterised by the repetition of the main theme between episodes. The last movement has a hunting theme, similar in character to the rondos that end Mozart's Horn Concertos and closely resembling his setting of Christian Adolf Overbeck's Sehnsucht nach dem Frühling: Komm, lieber Mai, und mache die Bäume wieder grün, K. 596, written on 14th January. The movement has contrasts of mood and key and a bravura element in the brilliant writing for the solo instrument, in music that is at times introspective and always deeply felt. The concerto is comparable to the greatest that Mozart w rote in times of greater optimism, a fitting conclusion to a remarkable series of works. Naxos