Mozart's Piano Concertos by C. M. Girdlestone

Author:C. M. Girdlestone [Girdlestone, C. M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781409791232
Amazon: 1409791238
Publisher: Plaat Press
Published: 2008-07-02T04:00:00+00:00

Ex. 176

Ex. 180

Ex. 177

Ex. 178

Ex. 179

The tutti which opens the allegro contains nearly all the important elements of the movement; the only one absent is the piano’s special theme. Its personality breathes mildness. No abrupt modulations, like the dive into E flat in the concerto in G; a mainly smooth rhythm, where one recognizes the march of the three last concertos, firm but supple, without roughness or haste, and a readiness to slacken and pass from crotchets and quavers to minims and semibreves (ex. 179). Instead of the vigorous repeated notes of K.451 and 453, the gentle undulations of broken thirds, fourths or fifths preponderate in the accompaniment and give the movement its velvety softness.

The themes themselves have this soft, reticent character. They all show a strong family likeness.1 Three of them contain the same figure (ex. 175a). Four give prominence to repeated notes and in three cases the note repeated is the tonic. They tend to return to the tonic and rest on it. The figure of the falling and rising scale (ex. 175b) is common to two of them; all avoid wide intervals and move usually in conjunct, or at least proximate, degrees. Quiet, rather lyrical, their outlines are not clear-cut. There is in them neither drama nor eloquence, and they are melodically undistinguished.

And yet this tutti is not monotonous. Twice over, without ceasing to be mild, it introduces variety; once at the opening of the second subject; once before the concluding theme. In both passages, the rhythm slows down and the emotion concentrates into chords. The first is perhaps the finest moment in the allegro; a silence marks it off from what precedes; uncanny progressions lead it into B flat minor, and at the end, when one expects to hear the second subject enter in the minor, it rediscovers the major with arresting simplicity (ex. 177). The subject itself (ex. 178) would pass unnoticed but for what went before it; admirably enhanced by this preparation, by the great circuit which Mozart makes to bring it in, its innocence is almost dramatic. By seeking afar what he had at hand, Mozart makes us believe that he sets great store by it. Seldom does he set off his themes by delaying them so long; seldom does he appear to consider them so important.

On the brink of his conclusion he uses a device which had succeeded in the G major (ex. 153 a and b). Over a cantus given out by the strings he superimposes when repeating it a woodwind descant (ex. 179).

In its dynamic marks, the movement shows a favourite galant practice, frequent in these concertos: the piano exposition of the first subject, followed without transition by a forte passage;1 the second subject and its long preparation given out softly; and a concluding forte.

As in the three last concertos, the scoring gives as much weight to wind as to strings: one wonders even whether the wind is not favoured. The two groups are opposed, mass against mass, in the first subject, as in K.

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