Piano Concerto No. 15 (Mozart)

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The Piano Concerto No. 15 in B flat Major, KV. 450 is a concertante work for piano, or pianoforte, and orchestra by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Mozart composed the concerto for performance at a series of concerts at the Vienna venues of the Trattnerhof and the Burgtheater in the first quarter of 1784, where he was himself the soloist in March 1784.[1] [2]

In a letter to his father, Mozart compared this concerto with the 16th concerto in D:

"I consider them both to be concertos which make one sweat; but the B flat one beats the one in D for difficulty."[3]

Indeed, many pianists consider this to be the most difficult of all of Mozart's piano concertos.[4] Beginning with this concerto, Mozart began to use the term "grand" to describe his concerti such as K.450 which feature a prominent and required wind section for the ensemble.[5]

The work is orchestrated for solo piano, flute, two oboes, two bassoons, two horns, and strings. The concerto is in three movements:

  1. Allegro
  2. Andante in E-flat major
  3. Allegro

Diana McVeigh has commented on the division of musical themes in the concerto's first movement, in the context of the relationship between soloist and orchestra.[6] The finale follows the ABACABA form.[7]

Simon Keefe has noted contemporary comments from Mozart's era on how the woodwind writing in this concerto showed a "newly intricate and sophisticated" character compared to Mozart's prior keyboard concerti.[1] Keefe has also analysed the character of the dialogue between the soloist and the orchestra in the concerto's first movement.[8] Elaine Sisman has postulated that Mozart modeled the slow movement on a theme-and-variations movement from the Symphony No. 75 of Joseph Haydn.[9]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Keefe, Simon P. (4 November 2001). "'An Entirely Special Manner': Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 14 in E Flat, K.449, and the Stylistic Implications of Confrontation". Music & Letters 82 (4): 559–581. doi:10.1093/ml/82.4.559. 
  2. ^ Eisen, Cliff (1994). "Music Reviews: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Klavierkonzerte für Klavier und Orchester. Ausgaben für zwei Klaviere. Urtext; hrsg von. Christoph Wolff und Christian Zacharias". Notes (2nd Ser.) 51 (2): 733–737. 
  3. ^ Hutchings (p. 290)
  4. ^ Steinberg
  5. ^ Keefe, Simon P., The Cambridge Companion to Mozart. Cambridge University Press (2003, ISBN 0521807344), p. 88.
  6. ^ McVeagh, Diana (April 1947). "The Concerto: Contest or Co-Operation?". Music & Letters 28 (2): 115–120. 
  7. ^ Portowitz, Adena (Winter 2001). "Art and Taste in Mozart's Sonata-Rondo Finales: Two Case Studies". The Journal of Musicology 18 (1): 129–149. doi:10.1525/jm.2001.18.1.129. 
  8. ^ Keefe, Simon P. (Summer 1999). "Dramatic Dialogue in Mozart's Viennese Piano Concertos: A Study of Competition and Cooperation in Three First Movements". The Musical Quarterly 83 (2): 169–204. doi:10.1093/mq/83.2.169. 
  9. ^ Mercado, Mario R. (June 1999). "Book Review: Mozart's Piano Concertos: Text, Context, Interpretation by Neal Zaslaw". Notes (2nd Ser.) 55 (4): 879–883. doi:10.2307/899584. 

[edit] Sources

  • Hutchings, Arthur, A Companion to Mozart's Piano Concertos, Oxford University Press (original publication, 1948).
  • Steinberg, Michael, The Concerto: A Listener's Guide, Oxford (1998, ISBN 0195103300)

[edit] External links

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Piano concertos by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
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About the Mozart piano concertos • List of compositions by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
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