Mozart: Three Piano Concertos, K. 107; Symphony No. 14 - Malcolm Bilson, Thomas Crawford, Orchestra of the Old Fairfield Academy

bilson crawford mozart v3 liner notes

Mozart dated his Symphony No. 14 in A Major December 30, 1771 in Salzburg, the same month he had returned from a four month Italian tour. Mozart had traveled extensively in Italy on several previous trips, and had been awarded numerous honors while gaining a unique perspective on European music. During his travels he encountered music by leading Italian composers, including Sammartini, who had done much to free early symphonic writing from baroque counterpoint and basso continua. The light, transparent scoring of this symphony is decidedly Italian. Harmonies and textures are clean and uncomplicated. There is little in the way of imitation or modulation, though the minuet pokes fun at the A major tonality with some dissonant leaps and a minor key for the trio...Mozart's first seven concertos are conventional in many ways, but at the same time they are charming works of genuine musical value, and certainly worth the attention of the critical twentieth-century audience. They are the first essays of the composer of twenty-three original piano concertos, some of them all-time masterpieces. The very fact that they are conventional might help us to gain some knowledge about what were considered to be the 'rules' for writing such concertos, and can help us ultimately to gain a more profound insight into the great mature works.