Emmanuel Ax, piano, with the Knights Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Eric Jacobson, Ozawa Hall Wednesday, August 14: Joseph de Bologne, Overture to L’amant anonyme Mozart, Concerto no. 17 in G, K. 453 Mozart, Concerto no.
20 in D minor, K. 466 Encore: Schubert/Liszt, “Ständchen” Thursday, August 15: Gabriela Ortiz, “La Calaca” (“The Skull”) Mozart, Concerto no. 14 in E-flat, K.
449 Mozart, Concerto no. 15 in C, K. 503 Encore: Chopin, Waltz in A minor, Op.
34 no. 2 Mozart’s mature piano concertos form one of those unique bodies of music that are both an epitome of a composer’s greatness and a game-changing moment in music history. Between 1784 and 1786, Mozart composed eleven works (concertos numbers 15 through 25) that basically established the modern form and significance of the piano concerto.
In writing and performing them, Mozart rose to his peak of popularity in Vienna, composing at a white-hot rate. (In the same three years, he also produced lots of his greatest works of chamber music, a symphony, and the opera “The Marriage of Figaro.”) During this period, he kept reinventing and expanding the concerto form to an unprecedented level of drama and formal complexity.
Miraculously, each work has a highly individual character. Four of Mozart’s unique talents—dramatic power, brilliant piano writing, melodic fertility, and a special affinity for the woodwinds—are fused to shape the new concerto form that would come to serve Beethoven in all of hi.