Piano Concerto No. 9 in Eb Major, K. 271
For piano with 2 oboes, 2 horns in Eb, and strings
Allegro
Andantino
Rondo: Presto-Menuetto cantabile-Presto
Program Notes by Martin Pearlman
This concerto, composed in 1777, is Mozart's first fully mature piano concerto. In its size, its significant technical demands, and its depth of expression, it is alone among his early concertos. It contains unprecedented experiments with the concerto form: the piano interjections before the orchestral introduction, the use of the piano during the orchestral close of the first movement, an impassioned C minor slow movement with an instrumental recitative, the cantabile menuet that interrupts the perpetual motion of the third movement Presto. Mozart also provided written-out cadenzas and embellishments for fermatas, improvisatory music that he normally left for the performer to improvise.
This work has long been known as the "Jeunehomme" concerto and was thought to have been written for a Mlle. Jeunehomme, of whom almost nothing was known. In recent years, it has been suggested that the pianist who inspired the concerto was in fact Victoire Jenamy, the daughter of the great French dancing master Jean-George Noverre, who was a friend of Mozart. Whether she actually played this virtuosic concerto is not known, but we do know that Mozart took this new work with him to play on his tour to Mannheim and Paris.
Boston Baroque Performances
Piano Concerto No. 9 in Eb Major, K. 271
April 8, 1977
Paine Hall, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
Martin Pearlman, fortepiano