Mozart 2023
This Week in Classical Music: January 23, 2023. Mozart. For the final couple of weeks, we’ve been concerned with the Jewish composers from Austria-Hungary and Germany, their lives throughout the flourishing of the Jewish tradition on the finish of the 19th and the primary third of the 20th centuries, regardless of the underlying societal antisemitism, and the way it all ended with the arrival of the Nazis. This week we’re in the identical place geographically however centuries aside: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born on January 27th of 1756 in Salzburg. We by no means considered it until we engaged with the Austrian music after Mahler, but it surely appears that there have been not that many nice Austrian composers earlier than Mozart, which appears reasonably unusual. After all, there was Haydn, Mozart’s direct predecessor, however in any other case, the music in Vienna was largely Italian and German. We are able to’t consider any important Austrian composers of the Baroque period apart from Heinrich Ignaz Biber, and within the Classical 18th century there was the Bohemian-born Johann Stamitz and his sons, however they spent most of their lives in Mannheim, Germany. Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf had a funny-sounding title and was a pal of each Haydn and Mozart, however his music is usually forgotten nowadays, although his oboe and double bass (sure, double bass!) concertos aren’t with out curiosity. The Habsburgs, the Austrian household of the emperors of the Holy Roman Empire who dominated from Vienna for hundreds of years, had been particularly keen on Italian music. There was not a single Austrian-born Kapellmeister until Mozart’s time: in 1787, when his genius was evident to all people, Emperor Joseph II appointed Mozart Kammercompositeur (Chamber composer), whereas Antonio Salieri continued to be the extra senior Kapellmeister.
However again to Mozart’s music. Now we have tons of of his items in our library, however not, till now, the Piano Concerto no. 22, and we’re glad to rectify this omission. The concerto was composed in 1785. This was a very good interval In Mozart’s life: he was fortunately married; he was mates with Haydn and performed quartets with him (and Dittersdorf); he composed and carried out a number of piano concertos and was paid handsomely for it; he moved to a costlier residence and acquired a fantastic pianoforte for himself. It was additionally the time when he grew to become a Freemason. The threerd motion, Allegro, of the concerto was utilized by Milos Forman in his fantastic movie Amadeus. There it was carried out (brilliantly) by Ivan Moravec, with The Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields performed by Neville Marriner. You possibly can take heed to it right here within the efficiency by Murray Perahia and the English Chamber Orchestra. Mr. Perahia conducts from the keyboard. The cadenza on the finish of the primary motion is his, after Johann Hummel, and the one on the finish of the threerd motion is by Hummel.
