Ann Chang Plays Mozart

CLASSICAL ANN CHANG PLAYS MOZART
distinctive texture and heroic lyricism of the
tone poems and operas that would define
Strauss’ career.
MOZART: PIANO CONCERTO NO. 20 IN D MINOR
Mozart composed fifteen piano concertos
between 1782 and 1786 while living in
Vienna. His Concerto No. 20, the D minor (K.
466), was completed in 1785 and premiered
the very next day with the composer as
soloist. Mozart was wildly popular in Vienna
at this time; audiences raved over his works,
especially when he performed them himself,
but this concerto remained popular well after
Mozart’s lifetime. It endured through the
early decades of the Romantic era thanks
partly to frequent performances by Ludwig
van Beethoven. In fact, to this day, it is often
published and performed with Beethoven’s
own cadenzas.
This work stands out in the Mozart catalogue
because it is one of only two piano concertos
in a minor key. Perhaps its brooding tension
and anxious turbulence helped endear this
piece to romantics, as well as set it apart
from Mozart’s dozens of delightfully sunny
concertos. Mozart also produced this piece
at a time when he began to develop as a
composer, incorporating more wind lines and
complex musical character. He would soon
produce the “Prague” symphony and The
Marriage of Figaro, some of his most mature
and well-admired works. The K. 466 concerto
displays the same newfound maturity in
its integration of the solo instrument and
orchestra, character contrast in all three
movements, and lingering tragic undertone.
The work opens with churning violins and
agitated low strings. The first movement
follows the double-exposition pattern common
to concertos of Mozart’s time, with phrases
announced by the orchestra in D minor
and then F major, followed by elaborate
restatements by the solo piano. Throughout
the movement, orchestra and soloist battle,
coming to a close with no clear winner.
The B-flat major second movement, marked
Romanze, begins as the title suggests—with
poetic themes introduced by the piano.
However, a G-minor outburst interrupts the
movement and gives way to virtuosic scale
patterns by the soloist which would normally
only be expected in fast movements of a
concerto. The finale storms in with boldness
and force. Its relentless menace calls to mind
Mozart’s most impassioned works, such as
Don Giovanni or his minor-key symphonies.
Like Don Giovanni, this concerto’s finale
concludes with an abrupt shift to D major, a
stunning burst of light at the end of unceasing
conflict.
A NOTE FROM ANN CHANG ON THE
CADENZAS BY MALCOLM BILSON:
A cadenza is a virtuoso solo passage inserted
into a movement in a concerto, typically
near the end. Some composers wrote their
own for performance, while others (like this
concerto) lack Mozart's own composition.
Several famous composers have written
cadenzas for this piece, including Beethoven,
Brahms, and Hummel. While they are
wonderful and widely performed (especially
Beethoven's), I have chosen to perform the
stylistically authentic cadenzas written by a
prominent American pianist and musicologist
specializing in 18th- and 19th-century music,
Malcolm Bilson (b. 1935).
His celebrated recording of the Complete
Piano Concertos of Mozart, in collaboration
with Sir John Eliot Gardiner and the English
Baroque Soloists (Archiv) features only
original Mozart cadenzas where available. For
the Concertos lacking a cadenza by Mozart,
Mr. Bilson composed his own. By choosing the
perspective of keeping with the composer's
style instead of "modernizing" to one's own
period or style, Mr. Bilson's cadenzas are truly
"Mozartian" and delightful.
In 2005, I became fascinated by the Classicperformance-practice
of master composers of
the period like Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven
through teachings and performances by Mr.
Bilson. The instrument of the period is known
as a fortepiano. Its wooden frame is in stark
contrast to the modern piano we know today,
which has an iron frame to which the strings
are strung. The resulting quicker decay of
sound produces clarity of phrasing and affect,
not organically possible on the larger, longerresonating
modern instrument.
I was fortunate to hear the sounds produced
by the fortepiano, or as Mr. Bilson calls it, "a
native speaker," by studying the rare Mozartreplica
fortepiano which exists today in the
Glenn Korff School of Music. My goal tonight is
to translate this language through the modern
Steinway and to express my gratitude for the
brilliance of Malcolm Bilson. I owe you
everything.
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