29. A favourite concerto in full - and something personal.
Mozart, Stravinsky.
Do you think that classical music is not for you and you don't know where to start? Or maybe you're a fan already and would welcome a fresh approach. You've come to the right place. Perfect pitch is for everyone. Beginners or experts, whatever your age. Lend Nick Hughie Hutchinson, your ears for his weekly dose of classical music that will enrich your life.
SPEAKER_00I want to do something slightly different this week. I'll concentrate on just one piece. But I'll talk you through each of the movements along the way. Right at the end of the podcast, I'll be adding a three-minute piece with a particular point that's it for me. My favourite Mozart can concerto of all this 27, and one of the only two written in a minor key is number 20. It's a favourite concerto for many people. I think the main reason for this is the timing of its composition in 1785, but Mozart was 29 and Beethoven not yet 15. So it's a pizza which really paves the way for the climax of the classical period, a period which followed the end of the Baroque period of around 1750 and ended with the death of Beethoven in 1827, making way for the romantic death. It's a dark and even angry pizza and has a thread of sadness throughout, even if it does end jubilating, which we'll discuss briefly when we get to it. It is also tensor, turbulent, and exciting. On the very first note, you can sense a real forbidding. The orchestration is dramatic and rich. That's more like a symphony actually. And when the piano finally does come in, it's as if someone has just walked into an argument. The melody changes in an instant, or something altogether calmer before mingling all the voices together. There's plenty of angry banter between panel and orchestra before it comes to a pizza rather than trying to conclude. Cadens are color passages right at the end of a movement in a concert, which allowed the code to open up filters and short that builds with some improved data. The concert was apparently Beethoven's favorites, which makes it think about the company. So he wrote some cadenses for the Pizza F, which I included here. It's Beethoven through and through. Almost an extract from a new sonata. You may remember how in the past I referred to in the importance of choosing the right recording. This is a palsating account, nothing less. As quick and clear as I have heard. So here is the first rather moody movement of Mozart's piano concerto number twenty, played by the orchestra Di Padova e Delvenitov, with Marta Argolitz at the piano. And no, it's not the one from the 1967 film Elvira Madigan, which, however lovely, seems to get far too much airing at the expense of others, especially this one. So I'm sorry if you're hoping for that, but you'll just have to dig it out yourself. It's number 21. Whenever I listen to this, it counters up an image of two lovers walking hand in hand in general conversation. That's certainly how it starts, with a typically charming and piece of melody introduced by the piano, which is then picked up by the orchestra. But then one of the lovers does something wrong, and the piece is disturbed by an outburst, one answering the other. You can hear it very clearly, I think, with the way the lower end of the piano seems to argue with the upper end. I put it like that, rather than left hand and right hand, because it is in fact the left hand doing all the work with crossovers over the right hand. And then, as we would wish all tantrums to finish, one of them pulls it round with a hug or an apology. And Mozart effortlessly brings us back to harmonious reunion. I have absolutely no idea such a thought ended his head, or indeed anyone else's head. But that's how it conveys to me. And so we reach the final movement of Mozart's piano concerto number 20, the Rondo played by Marta Argovic. We're back to the anger of the first movement, in an almost frenzied outburst. It opens with one of Mozart's favorite devices, the so-called Mannheim Rocket, a rapid and determined climb up the keyboard. Raz and Timpany are back big time, and the mood is maintained right through to Beethoven's cadensas at the end, with his hallmark trills in abundance. But Mozart knew that 18th century audiences did not like unhappy endings. You won't find one in any of Heiden's 104 symphonies. So in the final furlong, Mozart flips the whole mood of the piece on its head in the moments immediately following the cadenza. The concerto comes into a triumphant and exultant close with a very clear shift from its opposite key of D minor to the optimistic one of D major. Mozart was at the keyboard on its first performance, and it went down a storm. She was an ordinary lady, with quite the most unordinary of upbringings, having been born in Hungary in 1934. I have written about her on my Facebook page in some detail, as I can't hope to do her story justice in a couple of minutes here. Mum's taste was a polar opposite of dad's about near preferences. Johannes Strauss was I go to man. Although she did want to say to me she rather liked Bruckner, which I'm quite certain was a case of mistaken identity, especially if she would not have found me agreeing with her great hurry. I think she'd be rather surprised by this choice of music, but it strikes me as strangely fitting. The Firebird suite written for Diagolo's Ballet Company or Ballet Russe and first performed in Paris in 1910 was a smash here for its composer Stravinsky. I want to conclude today with its finale. Although this is the end of the piece, there's nothing obviously final about it. Quite the opposite in my view. In its ethereal opening few bars, it seems to look ahead to another chapter and waste little time in establishing a solid affirmation with it. As a woman with unquestioning faith, this sums up all I could hope of another now. A new beginning and a happier one.
SPEAKER_01Thank you for listening to Perfect Pitch with Nick Healy Hutchinson. He'll be back again next week with some more treasures for you. So please do join him then. And you can subscribe to this podcast by clicking on the link below.
