Mozart - Piano Concerto No. 23 K. 488 (on Period Instruments)
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- Опубликовано: 17 окт 2024
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Piano Concerto No. 23 in A major - K. 488
Robert Levin, fortepiano
Academy of Ancient Music
Christopher Hogwood
1. Allegro 0:05
2. Adagio 11:31
3. Allegro Assai 17:48
This makes me feel like hearing Mozart for the first time again!
Robert Levin is the greatest Mozartian scholar of our generation
Enjoy!
Yes. To the point he channels Mozart!
Listen, enjoy, appreciate.
Matthew Whitehouse Certainly. And he has inspired some pretty damn good fortepianists.
Not only have a lot of people gone to a lot of trouble to assemble a complete orchestra pitched at 430, but the col basso direction that Mozart inserted at the beginning of almost every of his piano concertos is also observed.
A rare moment!Alistair
I have listened to Mozart all my life, and this piece is even better on period instruments.
one of my fav concertos ever written. EVER
I find this fantastic!
I think Mozart was one of the composers with the most joyful and enthusiastic attitude about performing and listening to music.
::drops score to the floor:: IT IS MIRACULOUS!
Love that the piano provides continuo!
Yes, it was common in the classical era for the soloist to play with the orchestra. And pianos were used as continuo.
I'm listening to this from time to time just to get myself immersed in the perfection of Levin's playing. Simply the best articulation one could possibly imagine on the fortepiano.
It was one of three subscription concerts and was probably played by Mozart himself at one of these. That Mozart was evidently a phenomenon at piano extemperisation there can never be 'too many notes'.
I definitely admire the effort that has been put into this for making it as much "Mozart's-time-sounding" as possible. I like a lot how the col basso mark Mozart wrote at the beginning of almost all his piano concertos is taken to great effect here, being the fortepiano not so powerful of an instrument as the modern piano is to cover the orchestra, rather blending into it for enhancing the sound output.
If I had to make one observation, however, it would be ornamentation and melodic improvisation in the second movement. It is known to me that virtuoso soloists in the epoch (and especially soloists like Mozart himself) added a lot of improvisation to concertos while performing them. Mozart is no exception to this, and on the contrary he himself used his own improvisatory skills to enhance his concertos in a way no modern performance will be able to replicate. It seems to me, though, that despite the performer being able to somewhat imitate this, the many new phrases he forms over Mozart's written phrases audibly overcome the latter, thus rendering them probably irrecognizable to the common listener who doesn't know the piece all that well, and who, otherwise, would be able to go through that "I remember that" feeling one experiences when a theme one has already heard suddenly appears again.
In spite of all that, however, I have to catalogue this as a wonderful, almost magical performance. The finale is no less than majestic and powerful, the kind of finale that calls applause and ovation. The performance also gives more of an insight on how could the relation between the orchestra and the fortepiano have been in concertos in the 1780's, something invaluable, considering most recordings we have today of this and all other Mozart piano concertos, have been executed on modern pianos, which greatly enhance the soloist and aurally enlarge the piece, but don't bestow the audience the eighteenth-century feeling these concertos were, on their time, intended to convey.
It needs to be said Levin has a very strong argument to treat the second movement this way: an ornamented copy in handwriting of Mozart's student, Theresa von Trattner. The amount of additions by her is copious and she most probably imitated what Mozart was himself showing to her. While I agree the ingenious phrases in the second movement don't require any treatment to strike the listener, I have to say Levin is probably close to the truth here. What I have more problem with is the type of ornaments he chose - they are too much arpeggiated while even Trattner adds in some imitative ones (e.g., adding an echo of a motiv an octave higher).
I am no expert but to me the 2nd movement sounds too "wordy." It sounds like there is more than what is necessary.
I'm in love with this rendition of probably my favourite among Mozart's piano concerts. I don't think that the ornamentations of the fortepiano are "excessive" : expecially in the second movement, they really add a lot to the dialogue between the solo and the orchestra; given that fortepiano has a much "shorter" sound than modern pianos, diminutions help the instrument not to remain substantially silent between one long note and the other. In this sense, the most beautifully and peculiarly played part is in my opinion between 13.00 and 13.15. A thousand thanks for sharing.
A thousand thanks for your remarkable comment.
@@onPeriodInstruments please release more videos!
You just know that this is how Mozart played it. Such a restless spirit and yet we keep him in a strait jacket.
It has always bothered me that such large passages in his subscription sonatas have no piano scored! Folks didn't pay all that money to hear the bassons and violins wail away. Those gaps were definitely left by mozart for this exact reason....
"subscription sonata"?
Thy description of Herr Mozart enclosed within a straightjacket remaineth imprinted upon my mind's eye.
Nice waffling
VERY NICE ORNAMENTATION IN THE 18TH CENTURY STYLE. I NO LONGER LIKE MODERN INSTRUMENTS PLAYING RAMEAU, BACH, HANDEL, MOZART, HAYDN, SCARLATTI. ALL VICTIMS OF STEINWAY & SONS
Have you ever heard Mozart on Yamaha though? That's not victimisation, that's sacrilege.
Marvellous! I think this is original & REAL Mozart~
Period performances make pieces come to life!
In regard to the improvisatory insert/ improvisations of this knowledgable and wonderful pianist I would like to mention:
The Mozart Instrument with its
leather covered hammers and short string length did not produce the carrying power of todays instrument. The knee pedal was not very " giving " either at that time. Mozart had a lot of fun to enhance his single notes and it also helped to "distract" from the missing projection ability of his instrument. I love the winds in this recording. what a beautiful
color match .
This is the most wonderful interpretation :)
Thank you for uploading this. This is wonderful!
I feel the adagio is a too fast and too ornamented in the first bar of second solo exposition, then i love what follows. It is great interpretation of Mozart.
According to surviving manuscripts of suggested ornamentation by Mozart's own pupil Barbara Ployer for whom the concerto was written that's actually a very tame ornamentation for that movement. It's just Levin is the only man on the planet with gut strong enough to play Mozart as intended, i.e. with added ornamentation.
My favorite. Period!
Bravo! Great concerto, wonderful performance!
That's a pretty awesome third movement!
The phrasing and fast tempo just anotch faster than im used to hear it all contribute to a sense that K.488 is a new friend even though it was one of the first records I bought in the 1970's . Sir C.Curzon I think . Ive always wondered why such low violins in the first few phrases . Even the opening ha a melancholy I wouldnt expext for a work with 3 sharps. The 2nd mov I cant wait to hear Levin is really one of the best things we have. Unparalleled taste & intelligence !
I am considering buying a cd in which this piano concerto is on it played by Levin and the piano he plays is a copy of an Anton Walter made in Vienna around 1795. Does this piano sound the same as one produced in 1786 which is the year this piano concerto was written or does it sound slighty different? What year is this piano from that is on RUclips?
You can compare this fortepiano sound with the REAL Mozart's restored fortepiano:
ruclips.net/video/hIHQSQI4MWk/видео.html
Now only WAM is missing.
I must humbly state that I had the honor to play on the original instrument in Salzburg decades ago. What an experiment! This recording brings my ears closest to what I ever heard so far. The hammers are obviously
leather and it seems to have a knee pedal which is /was very
weak. The recording is pure Joy
I agree!
11:31
11:30 II
Awesome version but second movement makes me feel strange.
I am sorry for my inadequate English. Quote: " . . .but second movement makes me feel strange." I don't like to teach you about something you maybe know more about than I do. Maybe you are familiar with the tradition back then, they improvised a lot. In my opinion we should applause those who makes attempts to practise an old tradition.
Your English is very good. I mean, I can tell you're no native, but well done.
if it wasn't for your cool picture i would totally slam you.. it's not on a modern piano so it sounds that way
I feel miss of some more ornements in the rondo like 3rd mvt.
11:31 2nd mvbnt
😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍
Was really enjoying this until the ad started mid-cadenza.
The tempo is nice and the playing is nice but the ornamentation and improvisation take away from the basic melodic/harmonic paradigms that Mozart created. For me, Levin's colleague Malcolm Bilson's performance will always be the most moving and truest to the pathos inherent in this movement.
Those basic paradigms were obviously designed for improvisation.
I like it with less ornamentation too... but apparently these are Mozart's own ornaments, discovered by Levin in 2011
Levin's articulation, phrasing and authenticity is miles ahead of those of Bilson's.
Watch Levin’s video on Mozart and ornamentation. You’ll change your mind.
Without ornaments is also fine, but know that was not the way mozart intended it...
It's too fast
Historical tempo.
Too many notes!
XD
Too many notes. Riiiiiight.
Wtf are y'all talking about?
@@aktasluna Too many ornaments. It doesn't feel "pure" like how Mozart should sound.
@@felixfourcolor It's probably because of what you are used to hear as most of the pianists play as it is written on the score. However, the fact is that it was not even 'necessary' to specifically indicate those ornaments on the score. Just as in the baroque era, it was a common routine to ornament and decorate the music in the classical era too. Now, one can initiate an argument at this point and say that the baroque and the classical movements were fundamentally opposite ideas. Yes, in very deed they were! The simple and polished structure of the classical music was born to repugnate the complex and labyrinthic structure of the baroque music, but here comes this common misconception. Unlike it is thought by the majority of people, not everything has changed drastically and completely; and one of the ideas that didn't change much was altering the melody with grace notes, trills, mordants, grupetti, diatonic or chromatic scales, etc. There are books written by the contemporaries of Beethoven (esp. Czerny) about how to interpret the 'classical' music. Besides, if you observe the architectural forms of the 18th century, you will not only see the exact simplicity that is in the classical music, but also the meticulously practiced ornaments and details. I cannot help assimilating these features to the Ancient Greek architecture, and tastefully adding the fact that Mozart himself did not abstain using some of the syllabic meters of Greek poetry in his numerous compositions - notably in his piano sonatas.
Its a fake
Unnecessary decoration
Apparently decoration is a version in Mozart's own hand, written for his pupil Barbara Ployer and discovered by Levin!
oh! I didn't know until now !
@Vexalord I looked it up again. Apparently, according to Levin in 2004, (Levin, Robert D. "Mozart and the Keyboard Culture of His Time." Min-ad Israel Studies in Musicology Online 3 (2004): 1-26).the ornaments are in Barbara Ployer's handwriting, so they may be by her. More recently, however, I read that Levin found some other ornaments written in Mozarts hand on the back of another manuscript. I'll see if i can track down the reference.
I didn't find it, but I did find this: www.musicandpractice.org/volume-2/arrangements-of-mozarts-piano-concertos/ which gives examples of Hummel's cadenzas and ornaments for the Mozart concerti, and they are very like the "too many notes" of Ployer's ornaments. I don't think there's much doubt; Mozart ornamented his own music more heavily than we are used to.
@Vexalord I found the reference. www.theguardian.com/music/2011/sep/30/embellished-mozart-manuscript-uncovered Looks like it is in Ployer's handwriting, but it is on an authentic Mozart manuscript; so he probably knew and sanctioned it.
I. Allegro 0:06
II. Adagio 11:31
III. Allegro Assai 17:48