MOZART, BEETHOVEN, AND BRAHMS Notes on the composers and the pieces Wolfgang Amadè Mozart |
Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-Flat Major, Op. 19 Ludwig van Beethoven was born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne. After establishing a career in his home town, his ambition led him to Vienna in 1792 at the age of twenty-two. At the time, Vienna’s giants were Mozart, who died a year earlier, and Haydn, who would live another seventeen years. Beethoven was determined to join their pantheon, but he first established a reputation as a virtuoso pianist by playing private concerts for the nobility. To provide more income, he wrote his first two piano concertos to play before and win over the general public. He worked on both for a while, revising as he went along, thereby delaying publication and making them “his” works before others could take them up. Beethoven probably started his Piano Concerto in B-flat in 1790. He first performed it in 1795, inserted a new rondo in 1798, and added the cadenza in 1809. The C Major Piano Concerto came later, around 1798. Both were published in 1801, the C Major in March and the B-flat in December. Because of the publication order, the C Major became Piano Concerto No. 1 (Opus 15), and the B-Flat Major Piano Concerto No. 2 (Opus 19). —Roger Hecht Roger Hecht plays trombone in the Mercury Orchestra, Lowell House Opera, and Bay Colony Brass (where he is the Operations/Personnel Manager). He is a former member of the Syracuse Symphony, Lake George Opera, New Bedford Symphony, and Cape Ann Symphony. He is a regular reviewer for American Record Guide, contributed to Classical Music: Listener’s Companion, and has written articles on music for the Elgar Society Journal and Positive Feedback magazine. His latest fiction collection, The Audition and Other Stories, includes a novella about a trombonist preparing for and taking a major orchestra audition (English Hill Press, 2013).
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