14th Piano Concerto (Mozart)

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The 14th Piano Concerto in E flat major, KV 449 , is a piano concerto by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart . According to a different count, it is Mozart's 8th Piano Concerto.

Emergence

Mozart wrote the 14th Piano Concerto for his pupil Babette Ployer , whom he thought was talented enough to perform the difficult work. Mozart completed the concert on February 9, 1784 and entered it in his catalog raisonné. Large parts of the work were written as early as 1782. It can be assumed that Mozart found this concerto too difficult for the circles in which it was supposed to be performed. So he first wrote the lighter-weight concertos KV 413 , 414 and 415 .

With the 14th piano concerto, Mozart is at the crossroads from the old form to a new classical concept of the piano concerto. One last time he states that he treats the wind instruments ad libitum . In a letter to his father in 1784, Mozart reported: "This is a very special concert, and written more for a small than a large orchestra." The accompaniment can therefore also be played with four string instruments.

To the music

1st movement: Allegro vivace

The main movement is, like usually only the first movements of the concerts KV 413 and KV 491 , in triple time. The long orchestral exposure begins with a sloping unison motif of the strings. A special feature is the mixture of different subject groups and the surprising use of the subordinate movement in C minor. The second theme appears, unusually, in the dominant G major. The solo piano begins with a variation on the first theme. The subsequent transition to the second topic almost looks like a separate third topic. In the troubled performing Mozart used a small rhythmic motif of the main theme, which is the driving force. This part is partly of a dramatic density that points to Beethoven . The solo cadenza that precedes the motif retains this drama and gives it virtuoso expression.

2nd movement: Andantino

The Andantino is very expressive. The structure of the movement is a unique mixture of three-part variation form , rondo form and sonata form. The main idea is introduced by the strings. From this, with the solo piano, the complete first theme and the subsequent second theme in F major develop, which is not completed. In the condensed middle section, Mozart raptures the action, as part of a misleading modulation in B flat major, briefly in B minor. Only the re-use of the comforting main theme in B flat major leads to a harmonious calm and lets the movement fade away peacefully.

3rd movement: Allegro ma non troppo

The final rondo begins with a descending refrain theme in the strings. The first couplet in this rondo represents the independent second theme. The solo piano takes over the chorus and couplet from the orchestra. The second couplet leads to C minor in an almost contrapuntal condensed manner. It joins a small implementation of the chorus. The innovative final section is marked by a double coda with a change of time. The first coda surprisingly leads to the delayed repetition of the second couplet. The transition from the first to the second coda then leads into the harmonic, remote and extremely rarely used key of minor. The second coda now follows in 6/8 time and leads the movement to a happy and short end.

Status

Like the previous piano concertos KV 413 , KV 414 and KV 415 , the 14th Piano Concerto belongs to the early Viennese concerts, but in terms of content and form, it is further and further away from this creative phase and points to the second group of Viennese concerts, which with the 15th piano concert begins. The 14th Piano Concerto is the last work of this genre in which the wind accompaniment is ad libitum . The path to the obligatory Accompagnement is completed in the following piano concerto KV 450. The other early Viennese concerts already indicated that wind accompaniment would hardly be ad libitum, but more and more obligatory. This concert, composed in 1784, opens a series of four concerts that were written within six months and mark the beginning of a new creative phase for Mozart.

As with concerts KV 413 to 415, Mozart states that the concert could also be performed a quattro , i.e. only with a string quartet accompaniment. Here it differs from its large-scale predecessor KV 415. However, this procedure is quite common for Mozart's earlier concerts. In this concert, Mozart breaks with formal principles more than ever and thus illustrates his sublimity over predetermined composition conditions. Mozart reached the artistic maturity to break with well-established schemes and to reinterpret the existing principles of form.

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