Three Piano Concertos, K. 107 Symphony No. 14, K. 114
Malcolm Bilson, fortepiano
ORCHESTRA OF THE
OLD FAIRFIELD ACADEMY
Thomas Crawford, conductor
WOLFGANG A. MOZART
Symphony No. 14, K. 114 • Three Piano Concerti, K. 107
Symphony No. 14 in A Major, K. 114
[1] Allegro Moderato
[2] Andante
[3] Menuet and Trio
[4] Allegro Molto
Concerto for Piano in D Major, K. 107, No. 1
[5] Allegro
[6] Andante
[7] Tempo di Menuetto
Concerto for Piano in G Major, K. 107, No. 2
[8] Allegro
[9] Allegretto--Theme and Variations
Concerto for Piano in E-flat Major, K. 107, No. 3
[10] Allegro
[11] Allegretto
ORCHESTRA OF THE OLD FAIRFIELD ACADEMY
Malcolm Bilson, Fortepiano • Thomas Crawford, Conductor
ORCHESTRA OF THE OLD FAIRFIELD ACADEMY
VIOLIN
Linda Quan, Concertmaster
Rebecca Muir, Principal second
Fredric Fehleisen
Judson Griffin
Olga Gussow
Fritz Krakowski
Darryl Thomas Kubian
Peter Kupfer
David Myford
Lisa Rautenberg
Bonnie Richards
VIOLA
David Miller
Andrea Andros
Susan Iadone
CELLO
Loretta O'Sullivan
Christine Gummere
Alyssa Pava
BASS
Michael Willens
Judith Sugarman FLUTE
Anne Briggs
Catherine Folkers
OBOE
Marc Schachman
Sarah Davol
HORN
Alexandra Cook
Scott Temple
CONTINUO FOR THE SYMPHONY
Malcolm Bilson
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.
One naturally hears this symphony as youthful, and there are indeed glimpses of Mozart's celebrated symphonic style. But perhaps the most important aspect of this and Mozart's only other A major symphonies (K. 134 and 201), is the sound created by this tonality. It is jubilant. The cantabile melodies of the first and last movements have a unique luster which Mozart clearly recognized as belonging to A major. Mozart wrote K. 175, his first entirely original piano concerto, in the winter of 1773. By then he was seventeen years old and had toured many parts of Europe, including major capitals where he had performed, among other works, some piano concertos. Among the concertos he played on these early tours were the four so-called pastiche-concertos K. 37 and 39-
41, written in spring and summer of 1767, and the three present concertos, K. 107 from some time between winter 1770 and 1772. All seven pieces were arrangements of solo-keyboard works by various contemporaries. (Messrs. Bilson and Crawford performed the pastiche-concertos on MusicMasters 67095-2.)
We may wonder why Mozart started so late composing original piano concertos. It seems highly unlikely that he didn't feel up to the task, given the number and scope of works that he had produced at a much earlier age. We may consider a much more attractive possibility: namely, that Mozart thought of this kind of work in some sense as original, and not in the least degrading.
Mozart met J. C. Bach in London during the fifteen months he spent there from May 1764 to August 1765; this was the beginning of a lifelong influence. Bach was at that time already well acquainted with the early English fortepiano, of which the first models were built probably as early as 1763 by the builder Zumpe. His set of sonatas Opus V (1768) is written "For the Piano-forte or Harpsichord" (note the order). By 1768 Bach was definitely known in London as a fortepianist; in that year he played a solo on the piano in public, one of the first such performances known to us. This poses the interesting possibility that Mozart may have encountered a piano in England well before he got to play one for the first time on the continent. In Salzburg in the early 1770s, Mozart would surely still have played the
harpsichord most of the time, but we must keep in mind that the fortepiano had already been presented in concert to the Viennese public at least as early as 1763. Many different keyboard instruments were being built at this time and some of them were definitely piano-like. The Tangentenflugel was one of the instruments built by the Regensburg builder Spath. In this hybrid between the clavichord and the fortepiano the strings are struck by wooden jacks, standing at the far end of the key. It is therefore capable of dynamic nuances. It is one of Spath's instruments that Mozart is known to have preferred before 1777; he may therefore have known such an experimental keyboard.
two violin parts and one for "Basso".
There is a long tradition in Austria of music (especially dance and church music) scored for this combination. Apparently, Mozart arranged the concertos so that he could play them on tour whenever no orchestra was available, but only (everpresent) church musicians. That these kinds of chamber music performances of concertos were not unusual can be seen from the fact that Mozart wrote the later concertos K. 413-5 and 449 in such a way that the winds could be left out, and the concertos performed with a small group of string players, possibly even one on a part.
The scoring of the three concertos K. 107 is for a small chamber group:
The autograph manuscripts of the K. 107 concertos are jointly written by Leopold and Wolfgang: the solo part as well as the continuo figures, accompanying the tuttis, are written into Wolfgang's completed
by Leopold. Both the tuttis and the accompaniment that Wolfgang wrote are more than merely uninspired part writing. The orchestral accompaniment especially can be described as a genuine bearer of the expression in the way it supports and enhances the character of the keyboard solo. It is furthermore enlightening to compare the orchestral part with the solo part wherever the musical material is the same: it shows how Mozart reinterpreted the material that he had chosen to work with through new articulation, ornamentation and instrumentation. The fact that simultaneously occurring similar material in strings and piano frequently has a different articulation, lends additional importance to the accompaniment. These differences heighten the liveliness and deepen the colors.
The original models are rarely, but sometimes significantly, changed. The less significant changes can be attributed to Leopold's copying them into the orchestral score. Others are Wolfgang's, and represent considerable compositional interventions.
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 alltime 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.
- --Bart van Oort
Mr. Bilson plays a 1990 copy, by Thomas and Barbara Wolf of Washington, of a Johann Schanz fortepiano from the l780s.
MALCOLM BILSON has been in the forefront of the period instrument movement for over two decades. His performances of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven on replicas and original five-octave late-eighteenth century pianos have been a key contributor to the restoration of the fortepiano to the concert stage, and to recordings of the "mainstream" repertory. He has brought fresh insights to the interpretation of the piano works of those masters, in solo chamber music and concertos.
Bilson's career reached a high point during the Mozart bicentennial. By then he had recorded the three most important complete cycles of works for piano by Mozart: The Piano Concertos with John Eliot Gardiner and the English Baroque Soloists, the solo Piano Sonatas, and the Piano-Violin Sonatas with Sergiu Luca. He has toured extensively with the English Baroque Soloists with John Eliot Gardiner, the Academy of Ancient Music with Christopher Hogwood and the Philharmonia Baroque under Nicholas McGegan, in addition to modern instrument orchestras on both sides of the Atlantic. During the "Mozart year," he concertized on three continents. As a soloist he presented the complete series of Mozart Sonatas at several venues; he performed a large selection of Piano Concertos
with various orchestras, gave many lectures and master classes and was co-director ( with Steven Lubin) of Lincoln Center's original Since the mid-1980s, Bilson has been focusing his attention increasingly on the piano literature of the 19th century, and is currently engaged in recording the repertory of that period. He has recorded all the Piano-Cello Sonatas of Beethoven with Anner Bylsma, the Schumann Piano Concerto with John Eliot Gardiner and the Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique and the Fantasiestucke, Op. 12. Beethoven sonatas and other works, along with those of Schumann, Weber, Mendelssohn and Chopin also figure importantly in his present concert repertory. Bilson continues to teach and lecture extensively around the
world. As the Frederick J. Whiton Professor of Music at Cornell University, he directs keyboard studies in 18th Century Historical Performance Practice. He has also given workshops and master classes at the University of California, Oberlin, Eastman, Juilliard, Peabody, in Helsinki, Stockholm, Salzburg, Budapest, Tokyo and New Zealand. In 1991 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by Bard College.
THOMAS CRAWFORD
founded The Fairfield Orchestra in 1980, and in 1986 started the Orchestra of the Old Fairfield Academy, Connecticut's first historical instrument ensemble.
Mr. Crawford is active in numerous musical disciplines, as composer, conductor and organist. He has distinguished himself as a composer
conductor and organist. He has distinguished himself as a composer in all idioms and has been especially prolific in vocal music. As conductor, Mr. Crawford is both a champion of new American music as well as the proper performance styles of the Baroque and Classical repertoire.
ORCHESTRA OF THE OLD
FAIRFIELD ACADEMY is an ensemble of leading period instrumentalists based in New York City and the surrounding metropolitan area. Founded in 1986 in nearby Connecticut by its Music Director Thomas Crawford, the Orchestra has appeared since then in several New York and Connecticut early instrument series including Lincoln Center's Great Performers Series.
Volume I of this series, the Mozart Pasticci Concerti (MusicMasters 67095-2), was a debut recording for the Orchestra of the Old Fairfield Academy and the first recording that Mr. Bilson made with an American orchestra.
The Old Academy, erected in the town of Fairfield, Connecticut in 1804, is an excellent example of Federal Period architecture in New England. It is evocative of the art and music of the 18th Century, and it is for this that the orchestra is named.
