Concerto A major for Pianoforte and Orchestra [antikvár]

Mozart's Piano Concerto Koechel No. 414 in A major (1782/83) The three Concertos in F, A and C major (Koechel Nos. 413, 414 and 415). the first of their kind to be composed in and for Vienna, were intended for Mozart's subscription concerts in 1783. Although they are frequently mentioned in the letters to his father—written during the winter of 1782 83—it is by no means easy to determine the order of their origin. One of the Concertos must have been completed before December 28, 1782, for Mozart admits in a letter of that date, that two Concertos for his future subscription concerts are still unwritten. However, by January 22. 1783. he refers to the three Concertos as to one Opus, which has already been advertised three times in the Wiener Diarium (later Wiener Zeitimg). They were offered to subscribers in manuscript copies of four ducats apiece, fn an earlier letter Mozart had planned to ask for six ducats, but even the reduced price seemed exorbitant to the cautious father. From all these facts we may deduce, that the two Concertos, still missing on December 28, must have been composed during the first three weeks of January, 1783. Alfred Einstein has argued convincingly (1), that the Concerto in A, Koechel No. 414, must have been the first to be completed, because the first print (Ar-taria, Vienna) published the whole Opus in the following order : K. 414, 413, 4island also, because the Rondo in A (Koechel No. 386), which represents an alternative and thematically closely related version to the Rondo-Finale of Koechel No. 414 bears the early date, October 19, 1782. On April 26, 1783, Mozart offered the three Concertos to the Paris publisher, J. G. Sieber (2), dropping the hint, that the Vienna firm Artaria was interested in them. Sieber's reply seems to have been negative, for Artaria published the three Concertos (in parts only) in Vienna exactly two years later (March, 1785) as Opus IV (publishers' No. 41 42 56) in an edition, evidently authorized by the composer (3). Ofjthis Opus IV almost immediately a reprint (of the Piano part only) appeared, based on Artaria's original edition, yet—curiously enough —at variance with it in a number of small instances. The title of this reprint (which, like the first print itself, is available in the Hirsch Library, and in the British Museum, London) runs as follows : (4) Grand Concert pour le Clavecin ou Fortepiano avec l'Accompagnement des plusieurs instruments composé par W. A. Mozart—a Amsterdam, chez F. Schmitt, Liv. I '". The title of Artaria's first print may be added here : " Grand concert pour le clavecin ou forte-piano avec l'accompagnement des deux violons, alto, et basse, deux hautbois, et deux cors . . . Oeuvre iV, Livr. 1 " (1784). A further reprint was issued during Mozart's lifetime in London, through Longman & Broderip (later Longman, Clementi & Co.) approximately in 1790 (5). J. André—famous for the posthumous publication of some of the later Piano Concertos of 1786 ff. (6)—issued Opus IV (with additional Bassoons) in 1802 and Breitkopf & Haertel, Leipzig, followed in 1803. If and when Mozart himself first performed Koechel No. 414 is impossible to determine. It is, however, quite certain, that he did not play it at either of his Akaciemien in 1783. His letters to Leopold Mozart are very explicit on the programme of these subscription concerts. According to them and to further corroborative evidence Mozart played the third of these new Concertos (i.e. koechel No.415 inC) together with his old Piano Concerto in D, Koechel No. 175, in the Akademie of March 23. 1783. in a repeat Concert of early April (referred to in his letter of April 12, 1783) he played again the E. E. aosi