Piano Concerto No. 23 (Mozart)
The Piano Concerto No. 23 in A major (K. 488) is a musical composition for piano and orchestra written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It was finished, according to Mozart's own catalogue, on March 2, 1786, around the time of the premiere of his opera, The Marriage of Figaro. It was one of three subscription concerts given that spring and was probably played by Mozart himself at one of these. The concerto is scored for piano solo and an orchestra consisting of one flute, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns and strings.
The movements
It has three movements:
- Allegro in A major and common time.
- Adagio in F-sharp minor and 6/8 time (in later editions, the tempo is listed as Andante).
- Allegro assai in A and alla breve (in later editions, the tempo is listed as Presto).
The first movement is mostly joyful and positive with the occasional melancholic touches typical of Mozart pieces in A major.
The second, slow movement, in ternary form, is impassioned and somewhat operatic in tone. The piano begins alone with a theme characterized by unusually wide leaps. This is the only movement by Mozart in F sharp minor. The dynamics are soft throughout most of the piece. The middle of the movement contains brighter section in A major announced by flute and clarinet that Mozart would later use to introduce the trio Ah! taci ingiusto core! in his opera Don Giovanni.[1]
The third movement is a rondo, shaded by moves into other keys as is the opening movement (to C major from E minor and back during the secondary theme in this case, for instance) and with a central section whose opening in F sharp minor is interrupted by a clarinet tune in D major, an intrusion that reminds us, notes Girdlestone, that instrumental music at the time was informed by opera buffa and its sudden changes of point of view as well as of scene [2].
References
- ^ Girdlestone, Cuthbert Morton (1964). Mozart and His Piano Concertos, 2nd ed. New York City: Dover. pp. 375–376. ISBN 0-486-21271-8.
{{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ Girdlestone, Cuthbert Morton (1964). Mozart and His Piano Concertos, 2nd ed. New York City: Dover. pp. 384–386. ISBN 0-486-21271-8.
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External links
- Konzert für Klavier und Orchester in A KV 488: Score and critical report (in German) in the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe
- Free scores by Piano Concerto No. 23 at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)