ensemble solo piano and orchestra
duration 35 minutes
written spring 2010
written for Metropolis Ensemble
premièred May 20, 2010, New York, NY
published by Andres & Sons Bakery
Andrew Cyr gave me the idea to compose a new completion of the Coronation concerto. Mozart notated only a few sections of the left-hand part (intending to improvise it in performance) which I decided to replace entirely, in addition to writing new cadenzas. I approached the piece not from a scholarly or editorial perspective, but more as a sprawling playground for pianistic invention and virtuosity, taking cues from the composer-pianist tradition Mozart helped to crystallize.
A few months earlier, I had discovered a curiosity while culling through my piano teacher Eleanor Hancock’s music library: two cadenzas for Mozart concerti written by Béla Bartók. The gestural language was generally Mozart-style, but some Bartókian harmonies and piano techniques crept in at the edges. The effect is almost vertiginous— the classical ornaments remain, but the structure is replaced with something bold and modern. The challenge for me was to achieve this effect over the course of an entire concerto.
The house style of “my” Mozart concerto results from a several combined strategies. The left hand gets an extended catalogue of gestures (no more tasteful, 18th-century Alberti bass). It uses imitation, counter-melodies, and canonic interplay to participate in the musical drama of the right hand (sometimes even leaping above it in register). Harmonically, new chords both thicken and undermine the existing progressions, adding allusions to music after Mozart’s time (Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms, Prokofiev, Ives, Rachmaninoff, Stravinsky, and Bartók all make appearances). The result is an almost entirely new-sounding piece, which I hope will be an antidote to the studied blandness of most existing completions.
Watch
recorded live at Angel Orensanz Center, New York, NY, September 2011
performers Timothy Andres, piano; Andrew Cyr, conductor; Metropolis Ensemble
Mr Andres,
This is a fun project, no doubt, and I much admire your intentions in taking the “completion” of the piano part a couple of centuries forward. I wish, however, that you would have tried to re-write (or at least re-touch) the orchestral part as well. With the orchestral accompaniment left “as is”, the piece sounded to me more like a joke (a la PDQ Bach) than as a serious attempt to exploit an opportunity to re-think Mozart’s much (and so often boringly) played concerto.
I should mention that I came to your blog because I was much impressed by your bracing and edgy performance of Beethoven’s Op.53 at the WQXR marathon. I have returned to it several times with undiminished pleasure.
With best wishes,
Boom.
Hi Boom, thanks for your comment! It wasn’t really my intention to write a “serious” piece and I’ll be the first to admit that there’s more than a little PDQ in there.
I thought about the possibility of re-working the orchestral parts, too, but then I realized: where do you stop with that? It’s another kind of piece entirely, more along the lines of Michael Gordon’s Rewriting Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony (scroll down for an audio clip). You might also enjoy my friend Vince Raikhel’s brilliant reinterpretation of the 9th concerto, which incorporates an accordion, and transitions into an entirely different Mozart concerto halfway through.
Thank you for the links. Gordon’s and Raikhel’s are certainly intriguing commentaries on the classic works, although I can’t say at this point if they will sustain one’s interest through repeated hearings.
Incidentally, I just came across a review of the SONiC festival printed in The Brooklyn Rail, in which the performance of your gentle, ruminative “Crashing Through the Senses” is described as “the evening’s major offense” akin to (a sonic equivalent of) waterboarding.
I thought the description was borderline surreal. Compared to some sonically agressive works from young composers heard in NYC these days (e.g., Fujikura’s ICE and Du Yun’s AIR GLOW, played by ICE at the Poisson Rouge last Spring under Pintscher), your piece felt like slow dreamy walk through a Japanese garden…
Best,
Boom.
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Timo
I found your site after hearing a few snippets of the Mozart played on KUSC, Los Angeles. They clearly chose less dissonant passages and I thought it all great fun! I would love to see you rework the piece with some of the more jarring passages toned down. I think that a piece that remains a little more Mozartean in character but explores the inclusion of varied styles could become something more widely performed and appreciated.
Best,
David