In Mozart’s later piano concertos (Nos. 14-27), written for Vienna, the woodwinds step out from the shadows. Beforehand relegated to accompanying traces which frequently doubled the strings, the clarinet, flute, oboe, and bassoon now engaged in direct dialog with the solo piano. As with operatic characters, the persona of every voice got here into focus.
The identical magic could be heard in Mozart’s Quintet for Piano and Winds in E-flat Main, Okay. 452. Set in three actions, it resembles a miniature piano concerto by which the winds are given even freer reign. The mixture of devices—piano, oboe, clarinet, horn, and bassoon—was nearly unprecedented on the time. The younger Beethoven was impressed to make use of the identical scoring (and key) for his Quintet, Op. 16.
Mozart accomplished the Quintet on March 30, 1784. He carried out on the piano for the premiere two days later at Vienna’s Imperial Nationwide Court docket Theater. In a letter to his father again house in Salzburg, Mozart made a shocking assertion:
I think about it the very best factor I’ve written in my life. I want you may have heard it, and the way superbly it was carried out. To inform the reality, I grew drained from the mere enjoying on the finish, and it displays no small credit score on me that my viewers didn’t in any diploma share my fatigue.
The primary motion (Largo—Allegro moderato) begins with a sluggish introduction. It’s a mild “name to order” by which we’re greeted by every instrumental voice. Listening to this music is like eavesdropping on a dialog amongst a bunch of mates. The free-flowing dialogue is usually loving and nostalgic, generally tinged with ache, and more often than not playful and exuberant. Close to the tip of the exposition, this sense of enjoyable features a transient passage by which Mozart achieves a stunning echo impact among the many devices. Within the growth part, the piano begins the principle theme in A-flat main. The winds appear to say, “Let’s attempt one other key,” and modulate upwards to B-flat minor, then C minor, and at last C main. All of this motion takes place throughout the course of 16 measures.
The second motion (Larghetto) is an opera scene with out phrases. Serene, noble, and at occasions tinged with melancholy, it begins with echoes of Leporello’s “catalogue” aria from Don Giovanni. Later, shadows fall and for a second the music is shrouded in ghostly thriller.
The ultimate motion (Allegretto) is a sunny, spirited rondo. It features a written-out cadenza by which every of the 5 devices bids us a smiling farewell. The coda brings the exhilarating pleasure of an operatic finale.
This efficiency was recorded on the 2021 Solsberg Competition in Basel, Switzerland:
Featured Picture: Element of Facade of burgtheater in Vienna, {photograph} by Mihael Grmek
