MSC 3003 – Music in the Classic Period, Spring 2020 Prof. David Smey Class 8 – Thurs, Feb 20

Mozart and the Concerto

The Baroque Concerto

We began class by talking about the concerto in the Classic Period. The concerto emerges as the first real “orchestral” music in the Baroque period. (In my Music in Civ class we study Vivaldi’s Four Seasons as an example - you probably did as well!) You probably remember that a concerto is a vehicle for one or more soloists and an ensemble, and the piece will alternate back and forth between passages for the whole group and parts for the soloist to “show off.”

In the late Baroque period (of J. S. Bach and Handel) the preferred form seems to be the Concerto Grosso, a concerto for a small group of soloists. The size of the overall orchestra will tend to be small, here, and there is a subset of players who will take turns playing solos and blending back into the group.

For an example of the late Baroque concerto grosso I played you a little of J. S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 2, which features Baroque trumpet, violin, oboe, and recorder soloists.

In either of these formats, the Baroque concerto treats the soloist as part of the orchestra. In the passages where the full tutti ensemble is featured the soloist will play along.

Classic Period

The Classical Concerto goes back to a preference for one “star” soloist, and the difference between soloist and orchestra is amplified. As we saw in class, there are longs stretches where the soloist just waits for their turn to come in, heightening the drama of the situation.

Haydn writes only a handful of concerti, and none of them are for keyboard instruments. Perhaps his best known one is the Trumpet Concerto in E-flat major, Hob. VIIe:1.

The pianoforte concerto is the perfect vehicle for Mozart, however, especially during his Vienna years when he is dependent on public concerts and ticket revenue. He could play the piano part himself and conduct from the keyboard. Overall he writes 23 concertos for keyboard (plus some early pieces where his father had him adapt other people’s music in a concerto format.)

Sonata Form in the Concerto

The Exposition in a concerto adds two new twists to the formula we are used to. Normally, we repeat our exposition twice – the composer lays out all of their ideas with a modulation in the middle, and we usually listen to it twice (in order to better digest this “musical argument.”) In a concerto, we also go through the material twice, but the two passes are different. This is a double exposition. In the first pass, all of the ideas will be presented by the orchestra, and we won’t modulate. We’ll get a “fake” transition and all of the ideas that come after that are still in the tonic key. Then, the soloist enters and we go through all of it again. There is usually a sense that the soloist “helps” make a real modulation happen, and we’ll get our later ideas in a contrasting key, like we expect. Here are some diagrams which show the double exposition:

In the second half of the piece, we’ll get one more notable twist. We’ll pause at a climactic moment that allows the soloist to play a long, unaccompanied passage called a cadenza.

In the Classic Period it seems that it was common for the performer to improvise at this point. Mozart was a very good improvisor so that was almost definitely the case in his works. The composer might do future performers a favor and write out a cadenza for them to play, and it’s actually quite common for other composers (and other performers) to make and publish their own cadenzas. Thus the authorship of the cadenza is an interesting extra credit that may appear in a concerto concert program or recording. The cadenza typically appears at the very end of the recap, though some composers have also inserted it before the recap begins.

(Theory nerds: The orchestra cues the cadenza by playing a loud Kw chord. It is the cadenza’s job to ultimately finish this , converting that to a V and I at the very end. But of course the soloist will play a lot of stuff in between.)

Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 9 in E-flat Major “Jenamy”, K. 271

We started with this concerto from 1777, when Mozart was still in the employ of Archbishop Colloredo. Together with the Symphony No. 29 it is one of the most well-known works from this period.

This concerto has been (and still is) incorrectly nicknamed the “Jeunehomme” concerto. This means “young man” and people have been happy to imagine that it refers to Mozart or some mysterious young pianist that he wrote it for. However, it has been recently established that the nickname should really be “Jenamy,” because the pianist was really a French woman named Victoire Jenamy. (Somehow, early Mozart experts misread the name in Mozart’s letters and it became Jeunehomme.)

The Jenamy concerto famously “breaks the rules” of the Classical concerto by allowing the soloist to butt in at the very beginning of the work, in a very appealing dialogue between orchestra and soloist. Then she waits for the rest of the first pass of the exposition and plays a lot in the second pass, as normal.

We watched one of my annotated videos of the first movement.

We briefly touched upon the very dramatic second movement.

Finally, we looked at the third movement. This is a weird sonata- form. The basic pattern is your typical symmetrical ABACABA. It has some sonata-like action in it because the first B is transposed to a contrasting key and the second one is not, and the sections also feature dynamically modulating transitions and some closing themes. However, rather than putting a development-like section in the C Mozart decided to insert a minuet, for a complete and surprising change of pace.

I have an annotated video of the third movement as well.

Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 23 in A Major, K. 488

Also, we looked at a later concerto, from the Vienna years. This one is particularly famous for its intense and emotional slow movement in a minor key.

The first movement is a mellow and elegant .

For the famous middle movement I showed some choreography by Antonin Preljocaj.

The last movement is another high-energy sonata-rondo.

Party Music

Finally we did a quick bit on “party music,” pieces for small ensemble that are supposed to be light and fun. Such a work will usually be called a Divertimento or Serenade.

It can be written for a small string orchestra or a wind band.

The number of movements tends to be irregular - I’ve seen some single-movement divertimenti and a serenade that has seven movements. In general these pieces will lean towards “easy” forms like minuet and trio and theme-and-variations, with fewer sonata forms.

I talked a little about Eine kleine Nachtmusik, K. 525. This piece from the Vienna years could easily be called Serenade No. 13 in G Major. The reason it has its special title (which means “a little night music”) is because Mozart referred to it as such in a notebook. Of course this is a very popular work which we’ve already listened to in class. Serenade No. 10 in B-flat major, K. 361 "Gran Partita"

For this session, I wanted to focus on a different serenade, for an unusual ensemble of mostly winds. (It has oboes, clarinets, some odd clarinets called basset horns, bassoons, french horns, and one string bass on the bottom.) This work has seven movements! I. Largo - Allegro molto II. Menuetto III. Adagio IV. Menuetto. Allegretto V. Romance. Adagio VI. Tema con variazioni VII. Finale. Molto Allegro

Even though most of these movements are light and “easy” forms, the overall quantity of them makes this piece somewhat of a beast, lasting about 50 minutes. In class I speculated that perhaps it wasn’t intended to be listened to from beginning to end, serving more as a background for parties.

I meant to play the pretty third-movement adagio, but I goofed and played the first movement. Oh well.

Then I played the fun and uncomplicated rondo that ends the piece.