When the young Mozart ripped up the rule book

Mozart’s Ninth Piano Concerto (1777)  

Introduction

A century after Mozart, in the Romantic era, the solo concerto had become the perfect vehicle for pathos and heroism. Out in front, the lonely soloist had to seize the audience’s attention with titanic virtuosity or heart-wrenching expressivity in order to take the command away from the mass of players behind him.

Mozart’s piano concertos, however, play by different rules. The virtuosity is tinkling and dexterous rather than heroic. It’s a conversation where the piano never needs to shout, and often graciously concedes to the orchestra. The soloist in Mozart’s piano concertos is both a star player and an equal partner – which is what makes them so interesting.

Background

When he composed this concerto in January 1777, around the time of his 21st birthday, Mozart was still stuck in provincial Salzburg under the thumb of the Prince-Archbishop Colloredo. This one was the last of a set of four for the piano. He composed it for French amateur pianist Victoire Noverre. In 1778, she married a Viennese merchant named Jenamy, and at some point her married name was misheard as “Jeunehomme” – which accounts for the concerto’s nickname.

Why it’s so great

Quite simply, it’s a breakthrough piece, so far ahead of Mozart’s previous concertos you have to suspect divine intervention. The great pianist Alfred Brendel called it “Mozart’s Eroica” and the scholar and pianist Charles Rosen said it was “perhaps the first masterpiece of the classical style”. The energy of the music keeps taking it in unexpected directions.

What to listen out for

I’ve gone for young Russian pianist Andrey Gugnin’s performance in the final of the Sydney International Piano Competition of Australia in 2016. He won the competition, and this performance tells you why:

1st movement

Mozart’s first move is a masterstroke. Instead of setting up a grand entrance for the piano with a long orchestral introduction, he brings it in right at the beginning in a witty call-and-response with the orchestra, played twice (00.40). It must have made his audience jump out of their collective skins. Then the piano shuts up while the orchestra unfurls a string of beautiful inventions – with interesting details like a transition which you’ll hear a lot of, at 1.18, and an expressive climax at 2.02. Normally in classical-era concertos the soloist then makes a grand entrance and says everything we’ve just heard again, in its own special, florid way.

But Mozart has created a problem for himself. We’ve already heard the piano, so to make a grand entrance now would sound silly. Instead the soloist does the opposite, sidling in with a long trill at 2.22 and at 2.30 with an ostentatiously casual phrase. Then we do indeed hear everything we’ve already heard, but fascinatingly reordered and intensified; eg, the long melody at 1.40 is now played twice at 3.37 with a very expressive elongation at 4.05.

At 6.42 the opening fanfare-and-response returns (with the piano’s and orchestra’s roles first reversed and then unreversed!) along with the opening music, leading eventually to one convention Mozart always obeyed: giving the soloist a “cadenza” ie, a chance to show off: this comes at 9.42. At 10.57 Mozart rounds things off with a witty glance to the trill at 2.22.

2nd movement

Here, the operatic seam in the concerto comes to the fore. This is a long, tragic aria in a minor key, which the orchestra “sings” first at 11.44. The piano sings it again at 12.51 and expands it. As often happens in a dark slow movement, there’s a central section in a warmer, brighter key which in some strange way intensifies the sadness (13.31 onwards) before the opening, forlorn aria returns at 16.51. Sad high oboes at 20.06 set us up for the closing cadenza at 20.19.

3rd movement

As was common at the time, the finale is more straightforward. It’s made up of a perky invention launched by the piano (22.59) that keeps coming back (eg 25.55), with varying sorts of music in between. A surprising, elegant minuet intrudes, but eventually yields to the original fast melody. This scampers to what seems to be a fade-out ending, until its decisive end with two brusque chords at 32.59.

Recommended recordings

The latest recording, from Jean-Efflam Bavouzet and the Manchester Camerata on Chandos, is terrifically alert and alive. Mitsuko Uchida’s early recording with conductor Jeffrey Tate on Philips is more urbane and polished. For a startlingly romantic approach, try Myra Hess’s recording from 1951 conducted by Pablo Casals on Pearl. The most exciting, featuring an 18th-century style piano, is Malcom Bilson’s on DG Archiv.