Last week I listened to, commented on, and rated Francis Poulenc’s Concerto for Two Pianos, HERE. That made me wonder as to whether or not anyone had composed a concerto for three pianos. I ran a Google-search on “concerto for three pianos,” and I was completely surprised by what popped up: Almost all of the information centered on Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 7, K. 242 (info HERE).
I had no idea that Mozart had written a concerto for three pianos. Interestingly enough, the day before I had listened to Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 27. In the second movement of that concerto, marked “Larghetto,” there are lengthy passages of the piano playing nothing more than a single note at a time, and I remember thinking about how Mozart had achieved such beauty with such a simple approach – a simple melody played by one key at a time, accompanied by mellifluous strings. That made me wonder – if Mozart could compose such a beautiful work with just one key at a time, what might he have accomplished when working with 264 keys (i.e., three pianos)? Therefore, I decided to listen to his Piano Concerto No. 7 this week. The concerto is composed of three movements (I. Allegro; II. Adagio; III. Rondo: Tempo di minuetto), and it has a very distinct Mozart sound to it – that is, upon hearing the concerto for the first time, I suspect any fan of classical music would say, “oh, that sounds like it was written by Mozart.” It has all the hallmarks of his work: simplicity, delicacy, clarity, an emphasis on elegance and balance, and dulcet melodies with some use of counterpoint. The concerto does not include any particularly memorable melody lines (which Mozart wrote so often), but it certainly is pleasing to listen to. To be honest, the work doesn’t even seem to be remarkable in any way in that it was written for three pianos. When listening to it, I rarely thought, “wow – that sounds like three pianos”; instead I think Mozart could have accomplished the same result with just two pianos -- or maybe even one piano with two pianists. Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 7 is certainly a fine and pleasing work, but nothing spectacular. Hmm. I wonder if anyone has ever written a concerto for four pianos? SPOILER ALERT: The answer is yes – and once again, I was completely surprised when I ran a Google-search for “concerto for four pianos.”
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A New Hope:As the header above says, each week I will listen to a piece of classical music that I've never heard before, and then I will report out what I thought about it. Archives
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