Download PROGRAM NOTES by Paul Schiavo

PROGRAM NOTES by Paul Schiavo
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART
Piano Concerto No. 23 in A major, K. 488
BORN: January 27, 1756, in Salzburg
DIED: December 5, 1791, in Vienna
WORK COMPOSED: early in 1786
WORLD PREMIERE: Unknown, but almost certainly March 1786, in Vienna, with the composer
playing the solo part and conducting from the keyboard.
Many of Mozart’s works suggest a remarkably extroverted composer, one who almost casually
displays his wit, his passion, his elegance and his intellectual brilliance. But the true depth of his
music can perhaps only be appreciated through those pieces written in a more modest, intimate
tone. Paradoxically, some of Mozart’s compositions that seem the least openly expressive are
among his finest achievements. For as only the most confident artists can doan impression point
through quiet eloquence.
A case in point is the Piano Concerto in A major, K. 488. This was the second of three keyboard
concertos Mozart composed during the winter of 1785–86 in preparation for a series of concerts
he would soon present in Vienna. At this time he also was finishing the score to his great operatic
comedy The Marriage of Figaro. Yet the music of this concerto bears little resemblance to either
the humor of Figaro or the outgoing characters of the two other concertos Mozart wrote that
season. Instead, it brings to mind two pieces the composer would produce several years later: the
Quintet and Concerto for clarinet, K. 581 and K. 622 respectively.
The resemblance of those works to the present piano concerto is due not so much to their
common tonality of A major, which Mozart seems to have thought of as suffused with a kind of
soft aural radiance, nor to the scoring of K. 488, which omits trumpets and timpani and uses
clarinets in place of the oboes Mozart usually employed. It stems, rather, from a shared feeling of
introspection and a musical speech that is all the more moving for its restraint. To be sure, there
are energetic passages in both the opening and concluding movements of the concerto we hear
now. Still, this is perhaps the least outwardly brilliant of Mozart’s two dozen original keyboard
concertos, though one of the most beautiful.
WHAT TO LISTEN FOR: Mozart establishes the concerto’s character in the opening movement,
whose music is unusually gentle and in every way exquisite. As nearly always in his concertos,
Mozart begins with a paragraph for the orchestra, which sets forth two main themes. The first,
heard at the outset, connects by way of a vigorous transition passage to a second idea featuring
gracefully falling melodic contours. Upon joining the proceedings, the piano reprises each of
these themes in turn, then collaborates with the orchestra in varying, reshaping and otherwise
developing them. A cadenza, the customary rhapsodic solo passage for the featured instrument,
precedes the concluding orchestral statement.
The slow movement that follows begins with the piano musing alone. Quickly the orchestra joins
in, appending a passage that moves the music from soft poignancy to deep pathos. Despite the
lilting rhythms of the opening idea and the brief intrusion of a brighter second subject, this
movement is quietly heartbreaking, nowhere more so than in its final moments. But in
characteristic fashion, Mozart pivots instantly from sorrow to gaiety with the onset of the finale.
Here the mood now turns carefree and energetic, the soloist’s glittering passagework further
brightening the character of the movement.
Scored for solo piano, flute, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns and strings.
© 2016 Paul Schiavo