Mozart's 'Coronation Concerto'

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1789, Mozart was in Dresden, performing his new piano concerto at the Royal Saxon Court. Mozart was pretty good at documenting his own compositions, and we know from a catalog of his works that he finished this concerto in late February the previous year.

Unfortunately for posterity, he was less dutiful in copying out all of the solo piano part, which he no doubt just kept in his head. The surviving manuscript score contains just a shorthand version of the solo piano part, with the music for the left-hand hardly there at all.

Modern performers have to rely on their own wit and imagination to fill in the blanks, and, who knows: maybe he played it differently each time, improvising around his own sketchy outline as the mood took him?

In any case, Mozart must have been proud of this concerto. He played it again at the festivities surrounding the coronation of Emperor Leopold II in Frankfurt in October of 1790. Ever since, this concerto has been known as the Coronation Concerto.

Music Played in Today's Program

Wolfgang Mozart (1756-1791): Piano Concerto No. 26 (Coronation); Jenö Jandó, piano; Concentus Hungaricus; Mátyás Antál, conductor; Naxos 8.550209

On This Day

Births

• 1933 - American electronic music composer Morton Subotnik, in Los Angeles

Deaths

• 1759 - German-born British composer George Frideric Handel, 74, in London; He is buried in Westminster Abbey (see April 20)

• 1843 - Austrian composer and violinist Josef Lanner, 42, in Oberdöbling

• 1915 - Russian composer and pianist Alexander Scriabin (Gregorian date: April 27)

Premieres

• 1789 - Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 26 (Coronation), at the Royal Saxon Court in Dresden, with the composer as soloist. Mozart performed this concerto again in Frankfurt on October 15, 1790, at the festivities surrounding the coronation of Emperor Leopold II — hence its nickname.

• 1883 - Delibes: opera Lakmé, in Paris at the Opéra-Comique

• 1932 - Hindemith: Philharmonic Concerto in Berlin, for the jubilee of the Berlin Philharmonic, Wilhelm Furtwängler conducting

• 1944 - Roy Harris: Symphony No. 6, by the Boston Symphony, Serge Koussevitzky conducting

• 1951 - Cowell: Hymn and Fuguing Tune No. 3, for strings, in Los Angeles

• 1967 - Penderecki: oratorio Dies Irae, in Krakow

• 1967 - Webern: Three Pieces for Orchestra, posthumously, by the Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy conducting

• 1972 - Paul Chihara: Grass for double-bass and orchestra, at Oberlin College, Ohio

• 1972 - Sessions: Concertino for small orchestra, in Chicago

• 1977 - Leon Kirchner: opera Lily (after Saul Bellow’s novel, Henderson, the Rain King), in New York City

• 1996 - Zwilich: Jubilation for orchestra, by the University of Georgia (Athens) orchestra, Yoel Levi conducting