Piano Concerto in C major, K. 503 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Chamber Music - Digital Sheet Music

SKU: A0.1343361

The piano concertos of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart remain among the masterpieces in the medium. When the composer moved from his native Salzburg to Vienna in 1782, three piano concertos (K. 413, 414 and 415) were among his first compositions produced in the latter city. They were scored for full orchestra, but advertised when published as being performable by a keyboard soloist with string quartet or string orchestra alone. The flexibility of the scoring shows that, perhaps out of a desire for increased sales and more hearings of these works, Mozart was not averse to having them played by more intimate groups, transforming them into chamber music.
 
A rather different aesthetic viewpoint motivated the composer Johann Nepomuk Hummel’s arrangements of seven of Mozart’s piano concertos, composed between about 1825 and 1836, though the last of them appeared in print only several years after Hummel’s death in 1837. The accompanying ensemble in these arrangements consists of flute, violin, and cello.  Hummel, who had studied with Mozart as a boy, materially altered and elaborated the solo part in these versions, taking advantage of the increased range of nineteenth-century pianos. He imposed his own tastes in ornamentation and decoration, which strongly influenced the piano writing of Chopin, on melodic passages. This is especially true in the slow movements, resulting in a stylistic hybrid that bridges the Classical and Romantic eras.
 
The present transcription pays homage to Hummel’s elaborate and beautiful reworkings, well worth performing today, by using the same combination of instruments. The editorial viewpoint, however, is that of maximum fidelity to Mozart’s original text. The hope of the transcriber is twofold: 1) that keyboard performers, instrumentalists and audiences might enjoy this work in the absence of a full orchestra, and 2) that pianists might use this version to learn Mozart’s original solo part with a minimum of alteration for such occasions when they are called upon to perform it in its original setting.