18th piano concerto (Mozart)

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The 18th piano concerto in B flat major, KV 456 is a piano concerto by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart . According to a different count, it is the composer's 12th piano concerto.

Emergence

Like its predecessors, the 18th Piano Concerto was written in Vienna in 1784 . It is very likely that he wrote this work for the pianist Maria Theresia Paradis , Leopold Mozart said he had "made it for the Paradis in Paris". The concert is counted among the so-called military concerts , as it begins with a march-like main theme in the first movement. In some places the concert is reminiscent of Mozart's own opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail from 1782. Furthermore, in some passages it seems to be inspired by Johann Christian Bach's famous Concerto in B flat major .

To the music

Allegro vivace

The main movement begins with a cautious and not tutti presented theme in march rhythm. Only the transition to the second theme, which at times turns to minor, brings the orchestral tutti . The solo exposition of the piano begins without an entrance with the main theme. A mediating topic is used between the two topics , which is not a third independent topic, but rather an imaginative transition. The implementation begins with a new thought before some motifs from the exposure are processed. Again, the recapitulation does not represent a verbatim repetition of the exposition, but allows new additions to be added to the main theme through the solo piano. The following solo cadenza also uses motifs from the main theme and appears overall less virtuoso than the cadences of some previous concerts.

Andante sostenuto

The Andante is a deep set of variations in G minor. The introductory bars of the main theme quote Aria No. 10 of Constanze: Sadness became my loose from the opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail . The piano does not participate in the presentation of the theme, but begins with the first variation. The solo piano plays around the intimate melody with a repetitive moment. From the second variation on, the respective repetition of the variation is also varied, as is the case in the final rondo of the 17th piano concerto . The piano now plays around the theme with elaborate figurations . The third variation represents the dramatic climax of the movement and the entire concerto. The theme is outlined in heavy forte minor chords of the orchestral tutti, accompanied by a troubled bass in rapid upward movements. The piano responds with a calming, intimate gesture. There is a complete tutti-solo variety here. The variation ends piano in major and leads over to the fourth variation. This is in G major and is introduced by the winds. Here the theme is significantly shortened and reduced to two eight bars. In the last variation, the G minor returns, here the theme is played around strongly. Instead of a repetition of the variation, an extended coda follows , which ends the poignant movement.

Allegro vivace

The final rondo begins with a hilarious theme of the solo piano. The orchestra quickly picks up this chorus theme and executes it in full. This is followed, unusually, by a new solo piano theme, but this is not the first couplet . Again, one can speak of a complementary first topic here . The first couplet is then performed in F major. The second couplet, which is in B minor, in chromatic relation to the basic key of B major, is harmoniously interesting . The winds here initially play in 6/8 time, but then switch to 2/4 time, with the strings and piano initially remaining in the old time, which is why there is competing rhythms between piano and orchestra. After the regular repetition of the refrain and the first couplet, an exuberant solo cadenza follows , which is more demanding than its equivalent in the first movement. The movement ends with a final ritornello, which is played by piano and orchestra together.

Status

The 18th Piano Concerto brings not so many new features and peculiarities as the previous 17. Piano Concerto . The work belongs to the so-called military concerts , as it has a march-like main theme in the first movement. Similar to the following 19th piano concerto or, in a weakened form, the 16th piano concerto . The instrumentation in this concert is extremely varied. The orchestral apparatus is put together in a variety of ways and the wind instruments, which have long since become obligatory, again represent a third body of sound in some places. The quotation from an aria by Die Entführung aus dem Serail in the second movement is striking . On the one hand, this deeply inner and emotional sentence is reminiscent of Mozart's past. On the other hand, however, it already points to Ludwig van Beethoven in various melodic turns . The final rondo comes up with a harmonious innovation in Mozart's music. For the first time there is a chromatic relationship between the movements, which was extremely rare at the time and only occurred in isolated cases with Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and Joseph Haydn . The B minor of the rondo is chromatically the elevated level of the B major key of the concerto. In the course of music history, working with chromatic relations between the movements will prevail.

literature

  • Hansjürgen Schaefer: concert book orchestral music GO. VEB German publishing house for music, Leipzig 1978.
  • Harenberg concert guide. Harenberg Kommunikation, Dortmund 1998, ISBN 3-611-00535-5 .
  • Marius Flothuis: Mozart's Piano Concertos. CH Beck Wissen, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-406-41874-0 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Expression of Leopold Mozart in a letter of February 16, 1785 to his daughter Maria Anna . Compare Marion Fürst: Maria Theresia Paradis - Mozart's famous contemporary. Böhlau, Cologne 2005, ISBN 3-412-19505-7 , p. 114.See : Digitalisat