Mozart Piano Concertos

Mozart Piano Concertos

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote 27 concertos for piano and orchestra. These works, many of which Mozart composed for himself to play in the Vienna concert series of 1784–86, held a special place for him; indeed, Mozart's father apparently interrupted him composing a "harpsichord concerto" at age 4. For a long time relatively neglected, they have come to be seen as containing some of his greatest achievements. Tovey championed them in his Essay on the Classical Concerto in 1903, and later came the famous books by Cuthbert Girdlestone and Arthur Hutchings in 1940 (originally published in French) and 1948, respectively. Hans Tischler published a structural and thematic analysis of the concertos in 1966, followed by the works by Charles Rosen, and Leeson and Robert Levin. In recent years, two of the concertos have also been covered in the Cambridge Music Handbook series. The first complete edition was not until that of Richault from around 1850; and since then the scores and autographs have become widely available through the publications of, among others, Norton, Eulenberg and Dover.