Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos. 15 & 21

This is a digital recording, released on Philips in 1983, and originally released in 1982.

## Details

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

1. **Piano Concerto No. 15 K.450** - 1. Allegro - 11:00
2. 2. (Andante) - 6:17
3. 3. Allegro - 7:56
4. **Piano Concerto No. 21 K.467** (Cadenzas: Radu Lupu) - 1. (Allegro) - 13:25
5. 2. Andante - 6:32
6. 3. Allegro vivace assai - 6:11

Total length: 51 minutes

* Pianist: Alfred Brendel
* Orchestra: Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields
* Conductor: Sir Neville Marriner

Recorded: London, 5/1981

Photo: Clive Barda

Catalogue Numbers:

* CD: 400 018-2
* LP: 6514 148
* Cassette: 7337 148

## Liner Notes

The immediate effect of Mozart's escape from Salzburg servitude, his marriage and so-called independence, can be noticed in his music; but its change of direction and style do not always correspond with changes in his life. From 1781 to 1786 (the year of "Figaro") his popularity in Vienna was ascendant. He became "the favourite of society" according to Erich Schenk, who recognises an *artistic* "turning-point" before Mozart's decline from a peak of popularity in public concerts, later regained in the theatre. The two concertos of this recording lie on opposite sides of that "turning-point" in 1784-85.

Mozart inherited the most attractive of extended musical forms in Vienna. His greater invention could enliven light-weight materials, but few examples of the *Galanter Stil* remain in post-Salzburg works. He imbued piano concertos with a profusion of ideas for public relish, and their music thus offers a strong contrast with the quartets dedicated to Haydn which are from the same period and brought a new concentration of musical thought, a new tautness of construction. He enjoyed the rewards of popularity, but those of artistic conscience were greater, and they prevailed. The concertos of 1785 attempted to secure both rewards.

K. 450 is among six concertos of 1784 for which we have Mozart's cadenzas, suggesting that K. 453, for Babette Ployer, was not the only one entrusted to another soloist. K. 467, however, is the middle one of only three concertos from 1785, and for these we lack Mozart's cadenzas. No other soloist is known to have used them during Mozart's life. Purists who dislike Beethoven's highly personal cadenzas for the first, the impassioned D minor, K. 466, find nineteenth-century substitutes more incongruous and less interesting. Alfred Brendel's enviable perception of period and personal style has led him to use Lupu's cadenzas and supply his own *Eingänge.*

Surely Beethoven's tribute recognises Mozart's bold advance with that first 1785 concerto; but was it maintained in K. 467? Yes. It was even surpassed in the "dream" *Andante* which still surprises those unacquainted with it. In the first movement emotional variety compensates for the D minor's immediate emotional impact. A minor-key passage, which curiously anticipates the first subject of the great G minor Symphony, suddenly follows the brilliant passage in G major; and towards the end of the initial *tutti* we first hear chromatic harmony that is quite Schumannesque. Yet emotional advance is not the only evidence of a "turning-point." The quartets incurred discipline of thematic expansion that led to Mozart's best symphonies, but it also affected the first movements of concertos, notably those of 1786 (K. 491 and K. 503) and the valedictory B flat of 1791; it also affected the concertos of 1785.

No experienced listener mistakes the lengthy initial *tutti* of a Mozart concerto for the opening of a symphony. Baroque solo concertos were shaped like arias, with initial ritornello statements framing the soloist's contributions. Mozart increased this first chain of ideas but in most concertos after 1784 their diversity was more tautly bound by a predominant main one. The first subject proposed dominates its movement. [In Alfred Brendel's opinion the opening of K. 467 conveys the spirit not of a solemn march but of an opera buffa scene. He points out that the tempo *Allegro maestoso* habitually associated with this movement is not authentic and feels that it contradicts the basic character of the piece.]

In K. 450 of 1784 the orchestra participates in nothing closely resembling a symphonic development, nor does it engage in much thematic interplay with the pianist; its function is to punctuate what were then considered difficult solo passages. (Mozart told his father that they would "make one sweat.") These comments do not belittle K. 450, probably the most brilliant of Mozart's transformations of the art of his friend J.C. Bach; on the other hand the richness of thematic interplay between orchestra and solo in K. 467 is enough to support a belief in that "turning-point" between the two years.

*Arthur Hutchings*

## Links

For the playlist of the album, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meww6VV1\_7Y&list=OLAK5uy\_mEDKlfiln8HvwVdWZ4crwbRF7lQ24ppPY (Tracks 1-6)

On Decca Classics, they don't have any more info on this album.

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