Monday 23 May 2011

Tips and Analysis of Mozart's PIano Concerto 23 in A Major (K488) with further help from Lang Lang

Mozart Bust srce: (fotopedia.com)
I was asked my teacher which Piano Concerto in entirety should I learn - one of the suggestions is Mozart's Piano Concerto 23 in A Major K488. Here are some of the resources I found.

Origin of  K488 Piano Concerto in A, Plus Accompanying Sketches by Dennis Pajot. This article analyses the original manuscripts and differences of sketches as well as absence of documented first performances.  Mozart often improvised his cadenzas, so Pajot identifies an unusual written cadenza in the first movement of the autograph copy. Music histoiran, Robert Levin, suggests that the concerto was written for Mozart's favourite pupil, Barbara Ployer.

First Movement analysis by James Greeson of the themes and harmonic (chord) progressions of the exposition, development and recapitulation sections of the sonata form within the concerto. To get a broad overview of this movement read the Asiyclassical blog.

Second Movement - Adagio
Again, Asiyclassical analyses the second movement highlighting points that Adagio not only means slow but 'at ease', and watch out for the controlled disonance, in this movement where Mozart takes you from tension  to release, from 'unstability' to 'stability', an effect which Asiyclassical claims creates movement and emotion. 

Third Movement: Lang Lang's Masterclass - Articulate!
Lang Lang's masterclass on the  3rd movement of the concerto - and how to articulate and get into the character of Mozart! It features a young and talented Anna Larsen who is a beneficiary of Lang Lang's music foundation.



Index Part 2 (above)
00:00 - 01:40 Articulation
01:50 - 04:40 Character
04:50 - End    minor character; climax and swing

Overview of tips on Mozart's style and Piano Concerto's third movement from Lang Lang
  • When switching from minor and major don't forget the colour change - Lang Lang describes as clouds (minor) and sunshine (major) .  
  • Don't play too fast that you can't articulate the notes
  • Feel the swing in some of the passages
  • Know where the climax(es) are

Index Part 3

1 comment:

  1. hello ben,

    thanks for the links to my blog! if you'd be interested, I just completed a full analysis of the Ravel piano concerto in G.

    thanks,

    andrew
    http://asiyclassical.wordpress.com/

    ReplyDelete