Mozart: Piano Concerto No.11 in F major, K.413
Mozart: Piano Concerto No.13 in C major, K.415
Mozart: Piano Concerto No.12 in A major, K.414

Piano Concerto Nos. 11, 12, 13
by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgang Gottlieb Mozart was born in Salzburg on January 27, 1756, and died in Vienna on December 5, 1791. He composed the three concertos on this weekend's program in the winter of 1782-83 for subscription concerts held in Vienna. The order of composition was probably A major - F major - C major. The three concertos were published together as Mozart's Opus 4 in 1785. In a letter to the Parisian publisher Sieber dated April 26, 1783, Mozart indicated that the concertos could be performed either with orchestra or with a string-quartet accompaniment.

Each concerto runs approximately 25 minutes in performance, and each is scored for solo piano, two oboes, two horns, and strings. In addition, the C-major concerto includes 2 bassoons, 2 trumpets, and timpani as well.

Mitsuko Uchida will play Mozart's original cadenzas in all three works.

Of the three concertos, only the A-major has been performed at Severance Hall before-first in November 1954, with George Szell conducting and Robert Casadesus playing the solo part, and most recently in April 1995, with Christoph von Dohnányi and Leon Fleisher. The C-major concerto has been previously played at Blossom in July 1978, with soloist Malcolm Frager under Matthias Bamert's direction. The F-major concerto will receive its first Cleveland Orchestra performances this week.

The three concertos on this weekend's program are usually viewed as the "little" F-major, the "little" C-major, and the "little" A-major, as we have more mature and more grandiose works in each key from Mozart's final decade. The present group of compositions marks only the beginning of what would turn into a magnificent series of seventeen concertos over the years. More modest in scope than some of the later masterpieces, the three "little" concertos nevertheless establish many of the main features of this genre, which was more important to Mozart than any other, with the only exception of opera.

In the letters he wrote to his father back in Salzburg, Mozart gave a detailed account of his busy lifestyle in Vienna. Leopold Mozart had disapproved of his son's departure from his native city and in particular of Wolfgang's marriage to Constanze Weber, so Wolfgang did all he could to convince his father that he was doing well in the imperial capital. This wasn't very hard for him to do, because in these years he was in fact successful beyond measure, as his letter of December 28, 1782 indicates:

I must write in the greatest haste, as it is already half past five and I have asked some people to come here at six for a little concert. Altogether I have so much to do that often I do not know whether I am on my head or my heels. I spend the whole forenoon giving lessons until two o'clock, when we have lunch. After the meal I must give my poor stomach an hour for digestion. The evening is therefore the only time I have for composing and of that I can never be sure, as I am often asked to perform at concerts. There are still two concertos wanting to make up the series of subscription concertos. 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. I am distributing the tickets at six ducats apiece….

Leopold must have objected that this price was too high, for on January 22, 1783, Wolfgang retorted:

Mon trés cher Pére! (My very dear Father!)
You need have no fear that the three concertos are too dear. I think after all that I deserve a ducat for each concerto-and besides-I should like to know who could get them copied for a ducat! They cannot be copied, as I shall not let them out of my hands until I have secured a certain number of subscribers. They have been advertised three times in the Wiener Diarium; and subscription tickets at four ducats each have been on sale since the 20th at my house, where the concertos can be obtained during the month of April.

(In his Mozart biography published in 1995, Maynard Solomon puts these prices into perspective by observing that Mozart at this time rented living quarters for 150 florins, or a little over 30 ducats a year, though in 1784 he would move to an apartment that cost three times as much. Yet in the same year of 1784, he paid a domestic servant only 12 florins, or less than 3 ducats a year.)

The long and short of it is that Mozart made a very good living during his first years in Vienna. And one of his most lucrative undertakings during those years was the set of three concertos that would eventually become his Opus 4.

Musicologist Ellwood Derr, who has examined these concertos in great detail, has shown that they are related by a number of themes common to all three, themes that moreover seem to have been borrowed from Johann Christian Bach (Johann Sebastian's youngest son), who had been the child Mozart's mentor in London. There are quotes from works by numerous other contemporaries as well, and there is reason to think that the "satisfaction of the connoisseurs," that Mozart is talking about to his father, derives at least in part from the audience's familiarity with some of the sources. It is very likely that Mozart intended these concertos to be performed at the same concert, as will be the case this weekend.

In spite of their thematic connections, each of the three concertos retains its individual character. The F-major work opens with a movement in 3/4 time, something that occurs in Mozart's concertos only infrequently, resulting in a lighter, more dance-like quality. Grace, charm and a certain natural elegance characterize this movement, but never in a "generic" way. The unassuming first entrance of the solo piano is an unforgettable moment, as is the brief minor-mode episode about halfway through (a passing cloud in an otherwise sunny sky). For this movement and the following Larghetto - a marvel of delicate lyricism and lavish ornamentation --, original cadenzas by Mozart have survived in a copy by the proud father.

The last movement is in minuet tempo, though Mozart uses the more complex rondo form rather than the simple minuet-trio alternation. Such finales are frequent in the earlier symphonies and concertos, though Mozart never used this type again after K.413. In this rondo, the main minuet theme alternates with two episodes that, however, complement the main theme rather than contrasting with it-an appropriately quiet and understated ending for a quiet and understated concerto.

C major is a bright and festive key; in their works written in this tonality, Haydn and Mozart included trumpets and kettledrums from a relatively early date; it was some years before these instruments became a permanent part of the orchestra. In terms of size and richness of invention, the C-major concerto K.415 does not lag behind the two grandiose later works in the same key (No.21 [K.467] and No.25 [K.503]): Mozart's special "C-major" character is already fully formed here. The orchestral introduction begins, unusually enough, with an unaccompanied melodic line played by the first violins; yet it is not long before the entire orchestra joins in with a majestic progression enhanced by the repeated C notes played as a "pedal" (a note that stays the same while the harmonies around it change). Unique to this introduction is the accented off-key note, played in unison by the entire orchestra just before the piano enters. The solo passages are enlivened by many fast runs; the lyrical second theme, where the fast runs momentarily stop, is given special poignancy by a brief minor-key progression-a passing cloud on an otherwise bright sky. A more extended stay in the minor mode occurs at the end of the development section, where a mini-cadenza (a so-called Eingang or "lead-in") occurs before the recapitulation gets underway with a restatement of the piano's first solo melody. Like in the case of the other two concertos, this one has an original surviving cadenza by Mozart.

The melody of the second movement, in a slow 3/4 time, has a particularly spacious feeling to it. As in the F-major concerto, Mozart included an extensive cadenza, something he rarely did in a slow movement.

The third-movement Rondeau has a cheerful, dance-like main theme, but each of the episodes brings considerable minor-mode tension. The first one is an intensely emotional "Adagio" in the tragic key of C minor, the second a stormy A-minor passage incorporating fragments of the rondo theme, while the last one is a varied repeat of the earlier Adagio. Here the piano part is lavishly ornamented and provided with a pizzicato (plucked) accompaniment in the violins that lends a haunting, pre-Romantic character to the music. There are no bright fanfares in C major at the end this time. In keeping with the preceding lyrical moments, the final measures are remarkably subdued, and even the trumpets and timpani are asked to play pianissimo.

For Concerto No.12, we have an extensive sketch surviving in Mozart's own hand-a most unusual occurrence with this composer who had a reputation of working out his works in his head long before he put pen to paper. The few sketches we possess from Mozart reveal how hard he could work on music that in its final form sounds so light and effortless. In this case, the basic melodic ideas were established early on, but Mozart changed many small details between the sketch and the completed composition.

K.414 speaks the galant idiom to which Mozart had been first introduced as a child by J.C. Bach. The style galant is characterized by transparent sound, simple harmonies, symmetrical melodic phrases and an avoidance of counterpoint. Bach, whose music epitomized that style, passed away on January 1, 1782, at the age of only 46 years. A few months later, Mozart wrote to his father Leopold: "Have you heard that the English Bach has died? What a loss for the world of music!" Scholars have long known that the main theme in the second movement of K.414 is a literal quote from the "English Bach"; Mozart must have been particularly fond of this theme, since he had quoted it once before, in a minuet for piano written back in Salzburg. The entire concerto is indebted to the galant aesthetic, though Mozart's harmonic language is more advanced than his older colleague's. This is nowhere more evident than in the central portion of the first movement where the tonality turns to minor for and the solo piano engages in an animated dialog with the first violins. A turbulent, though rather brief passage of broken chords leads to the recapitulation, which contains a few notable departures from the first presentation of the same themes in the exposition. Invariably, the changes make the music more sensitive and delicate. For this movement as well as for the others, Mozart wrote down not one but two different cadenzas-a longer and a shorter one for the performer to choose from.

In the Andante, Mozart freely continued J.C. Bach's theme, offering some very personal musical thoughts on the quoted material. The finale replaces an original movement that Mozart had written for this concerto but then discarded; this earlier finale survives as the Rondo in A major, K.386. The new Allegretto's main theme is of the most sophisticated simplicity: it emphasizes the most basic intervals (the fifth and the octave), but the shape of the melody and its accompaniment were created with the utmost care. A second idea is presented in unison, without harmonies, which is the simplest texture imaginable. Yet in Mozart, unison connotes extreme concentration; anything he presents in this most direct way is worthy of special attention. The episodes of the rondo are pure style galant, with just a few hints at dramatic tension. The most important of these occurs after the cadenza, where the melodic line is repeatedly interrupted by rests and the piano even plays part of the main theme in Adagio tempo just before the final closure. Such interruptions and slowdowns just before the end of a piece later became a favorite device of Beethoven's, who knew the Mozart keyboard concertos inside out and learned from them just like Mozart had learned from the works of J.C. Bach.

-Peter Laki