MOZART: PIANO CONCERTOS Nos. 8 & 26 "CORONATION" - Sidney Foster, Vienna Chamber Orchestra, Helmuth Froschauer

MOZART FOSTER NOTES

Although twelve years separated the composition of the two concertos presented on this recording, a similar aspect of Mozart’s musical personality emerges in each of them. The CONCERTO IN C MAJOR, K. 246, composed in April, 1776, is the work of a young man of twenty. Musically, he was still influenced by the sonatas and concertos of older composers which he had played and studied. Some of these works served as the basis for his earliest concertos which were really arrangements of the keyboard sonatas by popular composers of the time. The musical idiom of these older composers the generation preceding Mozart’s own was predominantly the style galant. Containing graceful melodies and uncomplicated harmonies, this designed for entertainment. It was therefore rarely serious and rarely in a minor key. It was easy to play and easy to understand...Mozart appears to have composed the CONCERTO IN D MAJOR, K. 537 in a great hurry, as the entire work contains 906 measures, but the left-hand part has only 452. This presented no problem for his own purposes as the entire work was in his head and he could play what he had composed even if it were not yet com mitted to paper. The incompleted left-hand part was fnished by Johann André, the first publisher of the concerto and himself a good composer. It is this version which has come down to us today.