SUNDAY, February 23, 2020
There are five concertos written in major than move to minor for the slow movement.
No. 3, K. 41, was arranged by Mozart. He did not write the music, so his choice of minor is his only in the fact that he picked something in minor for contrast. I don’t know what keys the original music was in, but simply switching to G minor from G major was not as effective as what he did later on.
No. 9 Jenamy, K. 271, was one of his greatest concertos although written at only age 21. As was common in that time he moved the slow movement to the relative key, from Eb major to C minor.
No. 18 K. 456, in Bb, again moves to G minor in the slow movement.
No. 22 K. 482, in Eb major, moves to C minor.
no. 23 K. 488, in A major, moves to F# minor, and that was a very unusual key for that time because it meant a more modern tuning system, otherwise something set in that key could sound quite bad on piano or harpsichord.
Of all 27 concertos, only two of them were written in minor concertos keys:
Piano Concerto No. 20 in D Minor, K. 466 (1785) – age 29…
Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K. 491 (1785-1786) – around age 30…
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791),began his series of numbered piano concertos with four that he wrote at the age of 11, in Salzburg: K. 37 and 39–41. However they are orchestrations of sonatas by various German composers. Most likely Mozart and his family became acquainted with them or their composers during their visit to Paris in 1763–64.
Piano Concerto No. 1 in F major, K. 37, (1767) – 11 years old
This is a “pastiche”, which stitches together different works of different composers for each movement, and each of the first four concertos is a pastiche.
The second movement of the F Major Concerto is the only movement of that has not yet been linked to another composer’s work. The first movement is an arrangement of Raupach’s Piano Sonata No. 5, and the finale comes from Honauer’s Sonata Op. 1 no. 3. How much help did he get? We don’t know, but if he wrote the second movement, that in itself is amazing. The fact that Richter, one of the giants of the 20th centuries, is play this is an amazing find. What I love best is that he uses music.
Piano Concerto No. 2 in Bb major, K. 39, (1767) – 11 years old…
The manuscript for the B-flat major concerto is written almost entirely in handwriting of Leopold Mozart, Wolgang Mozart’s father.
Scholars, however, believe the arrangement to his son’s. He likely improvised the solo piano part of the concerto, which his father would then have then notated. The original material is credited to Hermann Friedrich Raupach’s first piano sonata and Johann Schobert’s Op. 17 No. 2.
Piano Concerto No. 3 in D major, K. 40, (1767) – 11 years old…
The first movement is based on the initial movement of Honauer’s Op. 2, No. 1. The second on one by Johann Gottfried Eckard (op. 1, no. 4 ), the most famous keyboardist of his day. The third movement is based on C. P. E. Bach’s piece La Boehmer, published in the early 1760s. Mozart’s cadenzas for the concerto apparently his.
The concerto is scored for strings, piano (or harpsichord), and pairs of horns, oboes and trumpets.
Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, K. 41, (1767) – 11 years old…
The first and third movements are based on ones by Honauer (Op. 1, No. 1), and the middle one on Raupach.
The outer movements of this concerto are in G major. The slow movement is in G minor. There are five piano concertos by Mozart where the slow movement is in a minor key. This is the first, but in all the later ones – and the ones that were original – Mozart always moved to the relative minor key. In his later style the slow movement would have been in E minor.
The concerto is scored for strings, piano (or harpsichord) and pairs of horns and flutes.
Piano Concerto No. 5 in D major, K. 175 (1773) – age of 17…
The Piano Concerto No. 6 in B-flat major, K. 238 (1776) – age of 20…
Piano Concerto No. 7 in F major, K. 242 (1776) – for three pianos and orchestra – age 20…
Piano Concerto No. 8 in C major – Lützow Concert – K. 246 (1776) – age 20…
in the same year as the Haffner Serenade (K. 250).[1] Countess Antonia Lützow, 25 or 26 years old, second wife of Johann Nepomuk Gottfried Graf Lützow, the Commander of the Hohensalzburg Fortress, was a fine pianist.[2] The solo work is not highly demanding, but it requires agility. Mozart played the concerto in Mannheim and Munich on October 4, 1777, and used it for teaching. Three different cadenzas have survived of varying difficulty, accommodating the abilities of performers from student level to professional: one for two pianos.[3][4][5]
Piano Concerto No. 9- Jenamy – in Eb major, K. 271, (1777) – age 21…
The work is scored for solo piano, 2 oboes, 2 horns (in Eb), and strings.
This is one of five piano concertos by Mozart to have a slow movement in a minor key – in C minor -and this is the second.
The whole thing is a miracle. Some think that it is the best of all of them. It certainly belongs at the top.
Name…
The work has long been known as the Jeunehomme Concerto (“jeune homme” means “young man”), but the dedicatee was actually Victoire Jenamy (1749–1812), a daughter of Jean-Georges Noverre, a dancer who was one of Mozart’s friends.
This lady plays impeccably. I don’t like the arch in her neck. That’s a bad habit. But it does not seem to have hurt her body, and everything else is perfect. Her musical instincts are incredible. Gardiner is a conductor who always brings music of this period to life.
Concerto No. 10 for two pianos in Eb major, K. 365/316a ( 1779) – age 23…
Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 11 in F major, K. 413 or K. 387a (1782) – age 26…
in the sixth edition of the Köchel catalogue), was the second of the group of three early concertos he wrote when in Vienna, in the autumn of 1782 (according to the latest edition of the Köchel catalogue, K. 414 was written first). It was the first full concerto he wrote for the subscription concerts he gave in the city. The autograph is held by the Jagiellońska Library, Kraków with an additional, now incomplete, copy that Mozart brought to Salzburg in 1783, in the library of the Archabbey of St Peter’s, Salzburg. The concerto is in the usual three movements:
Piano Concerto No. 12 in A major, K. 414 or 385p (1782) – age 26…
It is scored for solo piano (or harpsichord), two oboes, two bassoons (optional), two horns, and strings (consisting of violins, violas, cellos, and double basses). Like all three of the early Vienna concertos that Mozart wrote, it is a modest work that can be performed with only string quartet and keyboard (i.e., “a quattro”). As per 18th century performance practice a string orchestra could also have provided as a suitable option for the “quattro” accompaniment.
Piano Concerto No. 13 in C major, K. 415/387b (1782–83) – age 26-27…
Piano Concerto No. 14, K. 449, in E♭ major (1784) – age 28…
The Piano Concerto No. 15 in B♭ major, K. 450 (1784) – age 28…
The Piano Concerto No. 16 in D major, K. 451, (1784) – age 28…
Piano Concerto No. 17 in G major, K. 453, (1784) – age 28…
Piano Concerto No. 18, in Bb major, K. 456 (1784) – age 28…
This is one of the five piano concertos with the slow movement in a minor key, in G minor. It is the third of them.
The work is orchestrated for solo piano, flute, two oboes, two bassoons, two horns, and strings.
The Piano Concerto No. 19 in F major, K. 459 (1784)- age 28…
Piano Concerto No. 20 in D Minor, K. 466 (1785) – age 29…
This is one of only two concertos that starts in a minor key.
Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major, K. 467 (1785) – age 29…
Piano Concerto No. 22 in Eb major, K. 482, (1785) – age 29…
The Piano Concerto No. 22 in E♭ major, K. 482, is a work for piano, or fortepiano, and orchestra by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, composed in December 1785. This is one of the five concertos with a slow movement in a minor key. It is the fourth such concerto. It is a theme and variations in C minor.
This is the first piano concerto of Mozart’s to include clarinets in its scoring, and is scored for solo piano, flute, two clarinets (in Bb), two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani (in Eb and Bb), and strings.
Mozart’s father – Leopold Mozart (November 14, 1719 – May 28, 1787) – wrote in a famous letter to Nannerl that he was surprised that a call was made for the slow movement to be repeated – “a rather unusual occurrence!”. In other words, the audience was so moved by this music that they wanted to hear it again.
Note: Maria Mozart (30 July 1751 – 29 October 1829), also called Marianne and nicknamed “Nannerl”, was a musician, the older sister of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. She was also very talented, though perhaps not as much as her famous brother, but because she was a woman any chances she had to make a career in music was destroyed by her father and the norms of society at the time. This is very similar to what happened to Fanny Mendelssohn, the sister of Felix Mendelssohn.
Piano Concerto No. 23 in A major, K. 488 (1786) – age 30…
This is the last of five concertos with a slow movement in minor, in this case F# minor. This was very unusual for Mozart.
Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K. 491 (1785-1786) – around age 30…
This is one of two concertos that starts in minor.