21st Piano Concerto (Mozart)

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The 21st Piano Concerto in C major KV 467 is a piano concerto by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart . According to a different count, it is the composer's 15th piano concerto.

Emergence

Within four weeks of composing the 20th piano concerto KV 466 , Mozart wrote the 21st piano concerto in Vienna in the spring of 1785 . It therefore belongs to the group of great symphonic piano concertos that began with the previous concert. The richly orchestrated work seems to be inspired in some respects by Joseph Haydn . Mozart wrote the work for his own concert performances in Vienna.

To the music

1st movement: Allegro maestoso

The tempo mark for the first movement is missing in the autograph and can only be found in Mozart's personal catalog raisonné. The march-like main theme is presented in three ways, first chamber music, then tutti and finally contrapuntal . Between these variants of the main theme, another cheerful second theme appears briefly. The following solo exhibition only touches the main theme tailored to the orchestra and then introduces a third theme, which develops from the anticipated, later main theme of the 40th Symphony KV 550 in G minor. The execution represents the artistic center of the movement. It works with two motifs from the main theme and connects them with new thoughts. Towards the end of the development, an organ point appears in the middle parts, which leads to the recapitulation . This approach will later become characteristic of Franz Schubert . The main orchestral theme also dominates the recapitulation, which is a clear indication that this is a very symphonic piano concerto. The extended solo cadenza touches on the main theme and then turns back to the G minor theme from the exposition. The final orchestral ritual lets the movement with the main theme fade away optimistically. However, the sentence does not end in forte , which allows a better transition to the subsequent andante.

2nd movement: Andante

The violins playing on the G strings give the movement an almost floating and remote character. It is the artistic further development of the similarly beginning Andante from the 6th Piano Concerto KV 238 from 1776. The movement is an example of the cantable character of many of Mozart's Andante movements. The almost continuous triplet movement of the accompaniment, combined with delicate pizzicati , gives the movement a uniformity and accompanies an endless melody that flows on and on. From a formal point of view, this andante is a strongly compressed sonata movement . After the purely orchestral introduction, the solo piano takes on both the theme and the triplet accompaniment. A second thought in F minor follows without interrupting the flow. A short implementation-like part is not very thematic and can be counted as a type of fantasy implementation . After a short coda, the poignant movement fades away without the melody ever stopping to flow. Even the triplet movement only stops briefly twice.

3rd movement: Allegro vivace

The final rondo mixes rondo form with sonata movement form in an unprecedented way. The hilarious, almost exuberant refrain theme is presented in the orchestra and then taken over by the solo piano, after a short entree . The first couplet brings a happily erratic second thought. After the repetition of the refrain theme, there is no regular second couplet. Instead, followed by implementation in which the refrain theme is reversed among others shortly after Moll and varied processed. Then the chorus theme is repeated again; the soloist's entrée also returns in a varied form. The solo cadenza has a motivic approach and mainly deals with the theme of the first couplet. The hilarious movement ends with jubilant chords from piano and orchestra.

Status

The 21st Piano Concerto represents a great counterpoint to its direct predecessor, the 20th Piano Concerto KV 466. The gloomy predecessor in D minor is contrasted with a C major work with a large orchestra and brilliant and cheerful themes. Like its predecessor, this work belongs to the symphonic piano concertos , a type that Mozart achieved in the D minor concerto. The orchestral parts are very large; the solo piano only takes on an accompanying function in some places. For example, the main theme of the first movement is a heavily orchestral theme that the piano only takes up fleetingly. A third theme anticipates the theme of the G minor symphony KV 550 , which was not composed until three years later.

The orchestral line-up has been expanded to include trumpets and timpani, which was last seen in the piano concerto KV 451 . From a formal point of view, it can be stated that Mozart takes the amalgamation of rondo form and sonata form in the last movement, previously practiced in many concerts, to an extreme. The second couplet , for example, falls victim to a large implementation . With this, Mozart proves once again that he is able to creatively interpret the usual formal principles and adapt them to his compositional ideals.

The main theme of the second movement became particularly popular internationally because it was used as the score in the film Elvira Madigan . As a result, in some places the anachronistic name Elvira Madigan became established for this concert, although the lady in question lived about 100 years later and the film dates from the 20th century.

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.

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