performed at Staunton Music Festival's "Masters and Students" concert
Sunday, August 15, 2021
Trinity Episcopal Church, Staunton VA
video by Stewart Searle
audio by Lexington Bowler
Andrew Willis, fortepiano
Natalie Kress, violin
Gesa Kordes, violin
Jason Fisher, viola
James Wilson, cello
Erik Higgins, double bass
PROGRAM NOTES
An incredibly important master-student relationship developed briefly between Johann Christian Bach and a young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) in London in 1764. Working under Bach’s guidance, Mozart developed a greater comfort adapting sonata form to the concerto. As Mozart would similarly learn about string quartets from Haydn, here he modeled three piano concertos (Op. 107 Nos. 1-3) on several of Bach’s keyboard sonatas. After a break of several years, during which he relocated as a “free artist” to Vienna, Mozart returned to the piano concerto genre in 1782. With three new concertos (Nos. 11-13) we begin the stunning succession of fifteen works that form the core of the classical concerto repertoire. About these 1782 concertos, written for his own performance at specific events, Mozart famously pointed out their primary appeal: entertainment.
"These concertos are a happy medium between what is too easy and too difficult; they are very brilliant, pleasing to the ear, and natural, without being vapid. There are passages here and there from which the connoisseurs alone can derive satisfaction; but these passages are written in such a way that the less learned cannot fail to be pleased, though without knowing why...."
In order to enhance their appeal and encourage domestic consumption-he was, after all, now forced to earn his living without a patron’s steady support-Mozart made arrangements of all three for piano and string quartet (or quintet). The Concerto in A, K. 414, is arguably the finest of the set. Mozart opens with exquisite ease: a singing violin theme, clear harmonic support from the other players, and the lightest touch of counterpoint. Each theme is gracious without being inane. At the same time, on full display is Mozart’s pearlescent piano writing, a kind of shimmering passagework that he likely improvised at the premiere.
The Andante in D minor, particularly in this chamber scoring, reminds us how gifted Mozart was as a string quartet composer. While the first theme suggests a sacred hymn topic, the second theme offers a tender operatic aria. The central section moves easily into related minor-mode keys (E minor and B minor) before a satisfying reprise and solo cadenza close the movement. K. 414 finishes with a delightful Rondeau filled with more sparkling keyboard writing and a developed sense of conversation between piano and strings. This is helped by the main theme’s structure, which can easily be parsed into smaller motives and passed from piano to strings and vice versa. Perhaps this interplay is one of those passages “from which the connoisseurs alone can derive satisfaction” while the rest of us are captivated by the charming scales and overall optimistic tone. In whatever camp you place yourself, this Concerto’s charms are hard to resist.
© Jason Stell, 2021
30 ноя 2021
