Piano Concerto No. 24 (Mozart)

The Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K. 491 is a concertante work for piano, or pianoforte, and orchestra by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Mozart composed the concerto in the winter of 1785–1786 and completed the work on 24 March 1786. The premiere was on 7 April 1786 at the Burgtheater, Vienna.[1]

The concerto has the following three movements:

  1. Allegro in C minor
  2. Larghetto in E-flat major
  3. Allegretto (Variations) in C minor

It is scored for flute, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani and strings. Of the Mozart piano concertos, this one has the most complete scoring.[2] (It is the only one scored for both oboes and clarinets.) It is also the only late Mozart piano concerto in which the soloist plays after the cadenza in the first movement, here adorning an orchestral argument based on the extremely chromatic opening theme of the work with arpeggios, all the way through to the quiet close. It is one of only two minor-key piano concertos (the other being No. 20 in D Minor), and one of only three concertos where the first movement is in 3/4 time (the others being No. 11 and No. 14). The whole performance lasts roughly 30 minutes.

The concerto has long been considered one of Mozart's greatest works. Arthur Hutchings has described it as the most "concerted" of all the concertos (i.e. the most integrated). Girdlestone has also effectively claimed it as the greatest. Ludwig van Beethoven took particular inspiration for his own music from this concerto.[3] Richard Strauss played his own cadenza for the concerto in 1885.[4]

The work has obvious musical antecedents in Joseph Haydn's Symphony No. 78, also in C minor and from which the Concerto's opening statement is drawn. Jonathan Stock has analysed in detail Mozart's use of woodwind timbre in the instrumentation of the concerto's slow movement.[5] Chris Goertzen has mapped the structure of the slow movement.[6]

The concerto was first published in parts in 1800. The manuscript of the concerto resides at the Royal College of Music.[7]

References

  1. ^ Maunder, Richard (February 1989). "Correspondence: Performing Mozart and Beethoven Concertos". Early Music 17 (1): 139–140. ISSN 0306-1078. JSTOR 3127279. 
  2. ^ Hutchings, A. A Companion to Mozart's Piano Concertos, Oxford University Press.
  3. ^ Kinderman, William (1996). "Reviews of Books: Beethoven Forum, ii (ed. by Christopher Reynolds, with Lewis Lockwood and James Webster)". Music & Letters 77 (1): 124–126. ISSN 0027-4224. JSTOR 732277. 
  4. ^ p. 40, Kennedy, Michael (1999). Cambridge Richard Strauss: Man, Musician, Enigma Cambridge University Press
  5. ^ Stock, Jonathan P.J. (May 1997). "Orchestration as Structural Determinant: Mozart's Deployment of Woodwind Timbre in the Slow Movement of the C Minor Piano Concerto K. 491". Music & Letters 78 (3): 210–219. doi:10.1093/ml/78.2.210. ISSN 0027-4224. JSTOR 732277. 
  6. ^ Goertzen, Chris (1991). "Compromises in Orchestration in Mozart's Coronation Concerto". The Musical Quarterly 75 (2): 158–159. doi:10.1093/mq/75.2.148. http://mq.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/75/2/148. Retrieved 2008-03-15. 
  7. ^ F.W.S. (July 1965). "Reviews of Music: Concerto, K. 491". Music & Letters 46 (3): 285–286. ISSN 0027-4224. JSTOR 732277. 

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External links

Childhood arrangements
Salzburg concertos
Concertos for two
and three pianos
Early Vienna concertos
Major Vienna concertos
Later concertos
Concert rondos