Review Summary: “Oh! We shall never be able to do anything like that!”
Composer Masterpiece Series No. 5
At the time of his death in late 1791 Herr Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was regarded as the greatest composer in musical history. This is, in fact, putting it mildly. With Joseph Haydn as the sole exception, Mozart towered so mightily above his “peers”, past and present, in all facets of European musical life, including but not limited to improvisational, pianistic, and compositional skills, only the most curmudgeonly doubted Mozart would remain atop such a starlanded list for all time. Perhaps had Mendelssohn not “rediscovered” Bach in the early 19th century nor had the Rhine birthed Beethoven, Mozart would still command the number one spot as the Zeus of western music.
Now, and this may be hard to believe, at least it was for me, for much of his short life, Europe did not embrace Mozart the composer. Haunted by his reputation as the Wunderkint from Salzburg, the memory of Mozart the child prodigy could not be dislodged from Europe’s collective consciousness. This, of course, is not without reason. Numerous times as a child Mozart toured Europe dazzling his audiences with his musical brilliance. A bonafide genius, the boy wonder could perform and improv better than even the most seasoned of musical veterans. Effortlessly. He could play in any manner of freakishness, whether that meant blindfolded, hands crisscrossed, backwards, beneath the piano, improvising for hours without pause, reproducing sophisticated themes after a single listen, or sight-reading entire movements, only the magic of the moment could dictate.
Most ironically, Mozart’s musical genius drastically altered the perception of his compositional genius. It’s as if he was considered nothing more than an unthinking mechanist who through the grace of god alone was put here on earth as a sort of Barnum and Baily’s sideshow attraction. Frustrated by the realities of his situation, Mozart began his career composing much, but by no means all, music for the masses. Met with relative successes and failures in the first years of his Viennese career, Mozart embarked on a new non-popular culture path (as much of as an anachronism as that is), which would catapult him to stratospheric fame.
Through a relentless work ethic Mozart composed no less than eleven masterpieces in a two-year period from 1784 to 1786, and one of these pieces is the Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor. One of only two Mozart piano concertos written in a minor key, many (including myself) consider No. 24 to be Mozart’s finest. The concerto is divided into the following three movements: A Sonata-Allegro in C minor, a Larghetto Rondo in Eb Major, and a Theme and Variations in C minor, and features radical structural innovation, stormy thematic material, intellectual rigor, crystalline part-writing, and above all, that quintessential Mozartian beauty.
The opening material of movement one is music that could only stem from the mind of a master. For one thing, Mozart utilizes all twelve tones of the chromatic scale. Typically, the proper use of chromatics in expository material is reserved for tension building through delayed resolution, and this is exactly what theme one accomplishes. The key of C minor is only established in the last two beats of the thirteen-measure long theme. Until then we are left floating in a realm of tonal ambiguity, and it certainly isn’t cheerful. Generally, the first few measures of any theme outline the main chord of the movement and then is shortly followed by V-I action which would effectively establishe the key. In this case, Mozart ups the tension by refusing to cadence until the very end. There is a feeling of uneasiness, we don’t know where we are, and music of the common practice period hinges on knowing in what tonal realm you exist. The theme itself, therefore, sets the tone for the storm that is movement one. As far as the music that the theme produces, it begins ploddingly, even deliberately, and then erupts in a maelstrom of thunder especially in the strings; one even hears a hint of Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto in C Minor Op. 37, seventeen long years before its publication.
After some exceptionally long thematic embellishment, for dramatic effect of course, theme two, a welcome respite, the proverbial eye of the storm, sounds in the winds. We get to breath a sign of relief as theme two dances in joyousness. But before we get to take a second breath, Mozart plunges us back into the open sea. As an aside, sonata form typically showcases a composer’s adeptness at exposing three interrelated yet individual themes. Here, Mozart opts to skip the third theme and head directly into the solo, which innovatively does not perform its typical task of repeating the themes verbatim. Instead, the solo begins with an improvisatory eighteen measure dance of previously unheard material. More unconventionally is Mozart’s decision to skip the second theme entirely and sound similar yet darker thematic material. This innovation flies in the face of the concerti principal that the themes of the Tutti determines the themes of the solo.
But it is the during the development that Mozart appears to really let his inhibitions go. After a series of modulations of thematic material in both the piano and then the orchestra, Mozart has the piano and orchestra engage in a thunderous dialogue which famed musicologist Donald Tovey described as a moment of “fine, severe massiveness.” With the recapitulation Mozart necessarily sounds all the themes of the exposition, this time in compressed form. Finally, we are once again led into theme two which has not sounded for some 400 measures. The movement ends in quiet pianissimo C minor chords. The storm may have ended, but it’s taken its toll.
As a polar opposite to the first movement, the second movement engages in radical simplicity. It is here that Mozart’s penchant for the heavens shines. Written in Rondo form (ABACA), the main theme, opened in the piano, I liken to beauty in motion. There’s not a hint of anxiousness or danger. We are in a state of Caelian tranquility. Mozart must have intended his theme to be this way; this allows him to easily dress its bare bones in conflict in the B and C sections. However, Mozart handles tension very differently than Beethoven. Maynard Solomon describes Mozart’s middle/slow movements as “trouble in paradise”. Rippling quietly beneath the surface is a perpetual source of disquiet, not quite easily noticed, but subconsciously ever-present. It’s as if Eden’s snake is slowly slithering his way to Eve; the advent of original sin hasn’t yet occurred, but it’s certainly coming, and sooner rather than later.
The third movement is perhaps Mozart’s finest opus in Theme and Variations form. Written in 3/4 (three beats per measure), the movement features a haunting dance like theme, waltz-ish to be more specific, in C minor with eight variations built upon it. The theme is a sort of Dance Macabre replete with overtones of Halloweenish darkness, but nevertheless bounces to an allegretto pace. One can imagine themselves at a midnight candlelit ball with freakish masks adoring the faces of the participants dancing till dawn. Structurally the theme is fairly standard; it is built on two eight measure passages each with a repeat. As is usual practice, passage one modulates to the dominant, G major in this case, and passage two modulates back to the main key.
The theme takes off in the strings then doubles in the winds for an effect of weightiness. The piano doesn’t enter until Variation I (from here on out V.1 V2. Etc.) and plays an ornamented version of the theme over bare accompaniment. V.2 structurally works as a sort of AxAyBxBy as the winds glide with the theme on the first go around, but is then followed by a virtuosic piano line in the melody supported by the winds in the accompaniment. The B sections follows the same schematic.
V.3 sees the roles of V.2 reversed. Here, the piano opens the theme with a thunderous solo, then the winds and strings take the theme in monophonic fashion with the second violin whizzing by in sixteenth notes during the repeat. Again, the B section follows the paradigm of the A section. V.4 brightens the mood of the dance with a cheery version of the theme in Ab major played by the horns and winds. V.5 returns to C minor, and with a hint of longing. V.6 is written in C Major, and is the most elegant variation of the movement. V.7, back in C minor, halves the length of the V.1-6 as no repeat is taken, and sees the winds take up the melody accompanied by the piano and strings with an echo of the feel of V.1. With a quite Beethovenian feel, three measures are added after V.7 that culminate in a fermata on the dominant and then lead into the cadenza. Post-cadenza the piano takes up the final variation and sees the rhythm changed from triple to duple meter. The variation is uncharacteristically bright for a minor key. Finally, the coda sounds and takes us to the end. Here, Mozart triumphs the darkness of the minor mode over the major.
Mozart’s Concerto No. 24 was an immediate success, but beyond its widespread popular appeal, No. 24 fosters an intimacy between itself and its listeners, and especially so for the more sensitive among us. Among the many whom held it in high regard were Johannes Brahms, Clara Schumann, and Albert Einstein. After having heard the C minor concerto in rehearsal, Beethoven remarked to his friend, “Oh! We shall never be able to do anything like that!”
