Piano Concerto No. 27 in B-flat major, K.

595

About the Work

Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 
© Richard Freed 

Mozart completed this final piano concerto on January 5, 1791, three weeks before his 35th
birthday, and exactly eleven months before his death. On March 4, in Vienna, he gave the first
performance of the work, serving as both soloist and conductor, in a concert that was given for
the benefit of the clarinetist Joseph Bähr. This great work stands alone in a sense, not only
because it is separated by three years from its nearest predecessor, and longer still from the cycle
of splendid concertos he produced in Vienna between 1783 and 1786, but because its character
and content define it as unique among his works in this form. It is the most deeply personal of
them all, the overt drama of the two concertos in minor keys—No. 20 in D minor, K. 466; No. 24
in C minor, K. 491—replaced here by what has been described variously as "a more personal and
notably resigned accent" and a feeling of "subdued gravity." In keeping with those descriptions,
the trumpets and drums of the two minor-key concertos, and the clarinets of K. 491 as well, are
dispensed with here: the orchestra comprises only a flute, two oboes, two bassoons, two horns,
and strings. 

Understandably enough, given the advantage of hindsight, several commentators have found a
valedictory character in this music. One of them, the distinguished Viennese musicologist Alfred
Orel (1889-1967), wrote: 

"The contrasts which Mozart had previously striven to overcome, here yield to an overall unity.
This concerto … is the measure of all that the artist had now laid aside. He had left behind the
great inner and outward struggles which had so long filled his life, and found satisfaction in
offering himself in the calm accomplishment of his mission as an artist. The 'liberated' style is
almost that of chamber music; it no longer aims at reaching the general public; it is without any
noisy virtuosity; it is lifted above all conflict—only an occasional echo can be felt, as from a
distance, throwing a personal light on the musical development." 
If Mozart indeed had any valedictory thoughts in composing this concerto, he definitely did not
choose a dramatic or ceremonial frame for them. The character of the work is predominantly
lyric—songful, in fact, to the extent of alluding to some of his vocal music in both of the outer
movements. The modestly constituted orchestra is the same as the one he specified for the
Symphony No. 40, in the emphatically dramatic key of G minor, before he decided to add
clarinets to that score, and the concerto's first movement, like that of the 40th Symphony, is
prefaced by a single bar which immediately sets the mood. It is not contrast, but rather
consistency of character, that calls attention to itself among the four themes presented in the
opening tutti. Orel cited references to Osmin's "O, wie will ich triumphieren," from the earliest of
Mozart's Viennese opera's, the 1782 Entführung aus dem Serail (the woodwind figures marking
the phrases of the initial statement of the theme), and to the finale of the "Jupiter" Symphony (his
last work in that form, 1788), suggesting that these allusions "serve, the first to contrast the
theme's resignation with the old hope of victory, the second to recall past battles." 

The Larghetto (in E-flat, alla breve), which achieves and sustains a pervasive serenity with the
simplest of means, might be said to convey another aspect of resignation. The theme itself is
simpler and more straightforward than the somewhat similar one in the corresponding movement
of the D-minor Concerto; the entire movement is of a clearly passive character, deceptively
childlike in its directness. Here the pianist is not given flowing legato passages, but a rather spare
line in which each note is a little event. No stark contrasts, but a touching deepening of mood
comes in the second part of the movement, more darkly colored (in G-flat) than the first. "There
is no place here for pianistic virtuosity," Orel remarked; "the effect is produced only by pure
musicality and feeling. A universe of 'noble simplicity and calm grandeur' envelops us and
allows nothing to break in which might snatch us from this contemplative serenity." 

In its opening measures the concluding rondo might suggest one of the "hunting" rondos that
were in vogue at the time (rondos such as Mozart wrote for his horn concertos and other works in
the 1780s), but the true, songlike character of the theme asserts itself within a few bars. It is one
which, barely a week after completing this concerto (and thus nearly two months before
introducing it to the public), Mozart used for his song Sehnsucht nach dem Frühling ("Longing
for Spring," K. 596), to words by Christian Adolf Overbeck: 

Komm, lieber Mai, und mache

Die Bäume wieder grün…
("Come, lovely May, and make
The trees green again…) 

Both the words and the tune itself have led to the song's identification with the world of
childhood, and this thought is very much in keeping with the peculiar poignancy of this concerto,
as Orel noted while at the same time acknowledging the technique that went into it: 

"Particular attention should be paid to the breadth of the harmonic and tonal structure: in the
development section the main theme is made to appear in a number of minor variants. The object
of this is not so much to produce an inner variety as to give free play to the imagination, the
more so since it allows recourse to a greater range of tone color." 

The hall in which the Concerto was first performed was in a building that had been an old flour
warehouse on the Himmelpfortgasse. The Mozart scholar Alfred Einstein found that address
—"Gate-of-Heaven Road"—touchingly apt, and remarked that "it was not in the Requiem that
Mozart said his last word…but in this work, which belongs to the species in which he also said
his greatest.
SOURCE: http://www.kennedy-center.org/artist/composition/3865

Music
Although all three movements are in a major key, minor keys are suggested, as is evident from
the second theme of the first movement (in the dominant minor), as well as the presence of a
remote minor key in the early development of that movement and of the tonic minor in the
middle of the Larghetto.
Another interesting characteristic of the work is its rather strong thematic integration of the
movements, which would become ever more important in the nineteenth century.[citation needed] The
principal theme of the Larghetto, for instance, is revived as the second theme of the final
movement (in measure 65).[citation needed] The principal theme for the finale was also used in
Mozart's song "Sehnsucht nach dem Frühling" (also called "Komm, lieber Mai"), K. 596, which
immediately follows this concerto in the Köchel catalogue.
Mozart wrote down his cadenzas for the first and third movements.
Simon Keefe has discussed the concerto in detail, with emphasis on the distinctive character and
experiments in style of the concerto compared to Mozart's other concerti in this genre.[1]
SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_Concerto_No._27_(Mozart)

Mozart’s Last Piano Concerto

Last week we stepped into the strange, mysterious world of Beethoven’s Late string quartets,
music which stylistically leaves behind everything that came before and offers up profound and
timeless revelations.
In its own way, Mozart’s last piano concerto (No. 27 in B flat major, KV 595) makes a similar, if
more subtle departure. It still sounds like the Mozart we know, but listen carefully and you may
notice something different about this music…perhaps an occasional hint of wistful sadness and
even wrenching pain.
Concerto No. 27 was first performed in early 1791, the year of Mozart’s death, at a concert that
may have marked Mozart’s final public appearance on the concert stage. By this time, Mozart’s
performing career was already winding down. His wife, Constanze was ill and he was deeply in
debt. He was treated with contempt by the new Emperor, Leopold II. The publisher, Hoffmeister,
refused to continue to publish Mozart’s music unless the composer turned out simpler and more
popular works, to which Mozart replied, “Then I can make no more by my pen, and I had better
starve, and go to destruction at once.” But the sizable amount of music Mozart wrote in 1791
(which included a piece for glass harmonica, a string quartet, the Clarinet Concerto, The Magic
Flute, and the Requiem) transcended all of this.
Concerto No. 27 opens with a wordless conversation between two contrasting opera characters.
The strings make a quietly passionate opening statement amid playfully comic interjections by
the winds. At the 0:37 mark, the final movement of the “Jupiter” Symphony (completed three
years earlier in 1788) briefly surfaces. (Listen here for a comparison). Similar to Jupiter,
Mozart’s final concerto is filled with counterpoint (multiple musical lines happening at the same
time). As you listen, notice all of the musical voices surrounding the piano line: the way they
weave together, move apart, and converse. From the violins to the flute, oboe, and bassoon, each
voice has a distinct persona and something to say. You can hear this in the passage beginning
around 4:00, with the entrance of the flute. Or listen a few moments later when the piano and
strings fade into a solitary woodwind line. Notice the way the line grows and changes shape, as
the oboe, flute, and piano trade places.
Entering the first movement’s development section, we’re suddenly confronted with one of those
hints of sadness I mentioned earlier. This once assured music gradually begins to falter and fade
into silent pauses. When the piano enters, we’re in a new and different world. And do you
remember those playful woodwind interjections from the movement’s opening? Now they are
transformed into a shockingly stern interruption in the wrong key. A moment later, the piano
picks up the “interruption” motive and the oboe takes the singing piano melody. Listen for all of
this here and then notice the way we return safely home at the recapitulation.
The second movement is a quietly introspective aria. Amid the simple perfection of the opening
melody, perhaps a lonely, solemn march, there’s a sense of lingering sadness. Again, notice the
way the voices interact: the three distinct voices in the strings, joined by the singing woodwind
line in this passage, the oboe joining the bassoon in a single, sustained pitch here, the winds
interjecting with a repeated chord a few moments into this excerpt.
The opening melody’s final statement occurs as a shadowy whisper, the piano, flute and violins
sharing the melody and creating an almost ghostly sonority. In the final moments of the second
movement, there’s a sense that the music doesn’t want to let go as it shifts to a series of
deceptive cadences to avoid an ultimate resolution. In the final bars, seven distinct contrapuntal
voices can be heard.
The frolicking final movement dances with playful, comic interruptions. The cadenzas in the first
and final movements (often improvised by the performer) were written by Mozart. At the end of
this final cadenza, the solo piano pauses for a moment of brief introspection. In the final bars, the
main motive is tossed around the orchestra as the piano erupts in joyful, bubbling arpeggios.
Nine days after completing Concerto No. 27, Mozart incorporated the final movement’s theme
into the song, Sehnsucht nach  den  Frühlinge:
Come, sweet May, and turn
The trees green again,
And make the little violets
Bloom for me by the brook!
SOURCE: https://thelistenersclub.com/2015/11/30/mozarts-last-piano-concerto/#more-12217

Piano Concerto No. 27 in B flat major, K.595 (1788–91) 1 Allegro 2 Larghetto 3 Allegro The
special position this concerto holds in the affections of Mozart-lovers owes much to its particular
qualities, of course, but also to the notion that, completed on 5 January 1791, it expresses the
resignation and weariness of spirit which had overtaken the composer after two years of
dwindling success and reduced productivity. And it cannot be denied that such an interpretation
suits this gentle work, in which the ebullient virtuosity and extrovert gestures which had
characterized the great piano concertos of the mid-1780s are rejected in favour of an altogether
more personal species of utterance, as if Mozart had tired of the rat-race of public display.
Modern research, however, has forced us to modify this view of the work, for it now appears that
it was drafted in incomplete score as early as 1788. Perhaps Mozart shelved it when the
prospect of a performance vanished, while his return to it at the start of 1791 may well have
been in response to the need for a work to play at a benefit concert for the clarinettist Joseph
Bähr on 4 March. This is not to diminish K595. If its wistful lyricism can no longer be slotted
quite so conveniently into the details of Mozart’s life – and if it is no longer the ‘work of farewell’
that one influential 20th-century Mozart scholar dubbed it – then its purely musical value as a
composition of noble and restrained beauty remains for all to hear. Like the Symphony No. 40, it
opens with a bar of accompaniment before the first theme appears, a yearning, looping violin
melody that sets the mood for the rest of the movement. As the opening orchestral section
progresses a feeling of longing persists, reinforced by the music’s frequent turns to the minor,
and the atmosphere hardly changes at the entry of the soloist where, instead of the usual
operatic opposition of melodic material, we find the piano coming in with an uncontroversial
restatement of the first theme. Thereafter it is content to contribute only one agonised new
theme of its own and, after the central development section has rumbled through a multitude of
keys without letting its surface smoothness slip, the movement closes in the same quiet vein in
which it had started. The resigned and unargumentative mood of this first movement carries
over into the second, an E flat major Larghetto in a three-part A–B–A form. As in the first
movement soloist and orchestra are here very much in thematic and spiritual accord, with the
other instruments providing unquestioning support for the piano’s quiet complaints, offering
sympathy and occasional outbursts of consolatory warmth. This is music whose elegant
simplicity of expression easily matches that of the more celebrated slow movement of the Piano
Concerto No. 21 (in C major, K467). The final rondo brings something, at least, of the brilliance
of Mozart’s earlier concertos, but if its playful demeanour suggests that the composer has
turned his back on the sadnesses of the preceding movements, a continued flirtation with the
minor mode and an insistent preoccupation with the least stable part of the principal returning
theme are enough to remind us of less complacent emotions. The resulting faintly nostalgic feel
makes a fitting close to a work in which, perhaps, we can after all hear Mozart recalling happier
days.

SOURCE: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p01yhtkv

Mf, p, abrupt change key, direct key change.2 nd and 3rd movement has 1 theme

Sunshine and sorrow.

Intro: wwds interrupt. Violin interrupts. Full of Dim4th intervals, sfortzanzo

5:40 minor key then piano enters , flute+piano duet.

Change keys Bb to C
11:00 - key changes to piano

Mozart didn’t know this is his last concerto

2. Eb = IV of Bb

14:32 2nd subject then 15:00= back to principal theme. NEW: Chromaticism

16:20 diminished chords. Wait for cadence

18:00 piano improvisation

He played it himself so he didn’t write it. So theres room for improvisation. Maybe triplet or 16 th noted
bar 94

K596 last spring and 3rd movement = somehow same

1 idea: spring

25: back to main theme

RONDO with sonata form

Not new material: just derived from theme

Development: texture

Cadenza 273