Thursday 21 August 2008

149. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Piano Concerto no. 24 (1786)














Recording

Title: Piano Concertos C Major KV 467 & c Minor KV 491
Performer: Clifford Curzon, Symphonie-Orchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks
Director: Rafael Kubelik
Year: 1970
Length: 31 minutes

Review

Another great Piano concerto by the classical master of piano concertos (Beethoven is the romantic master). This is with good reason considered the more integrated of Mozart's concertos, the piano and the Orchestra work in perfect harmony.

The first movement gives the Orchestra a superhuman sense of foreboding and epicness while the piano complements it with the truly human and emotional part of a fantastic movement.

The following movements aren't as marked in their dichotomy with the piano but are equally great. Even if this isn't one of the most accessible of Mozart concertos, it is damn near perfect. Highly Recommended.

Final Grade


10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Long considered to be one of Mozart's greatest works, Arthur Hutchings has described it to be 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.

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. Chris Goertzen has mapped the structure of the slow movement.

The concerto was first published in parts in 1800. The manuscript of the concerto resided in the 1960's at the Royal College of Music.

1st movement:

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