then we saw the stars again

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Piano Concerto n.23, K 488. 2nd Movement

———————-

It’s the end of the year. For some it’s the end of the decade, though everyone knows that the decade will only end next year… either way, everywhere you turn someone is writing a top 3/5/10/100 somewhere.

So that set me thinking. If I were to pick my 3 favourite piano pieces, which would they be? I’m perfectly aware that those 3 choices would change tomorrow, next week, or even later, but I’ve been giving this top 3 some thinking, and for the time being, I’ll stick to it. So in the next couple of episodes, this is what I’ll share, rather than a more obvious tie to a postrock theme or feature. Of course, you may find affinities of your own if you listen closely…
———————-

More than any other composer, I think I would associate growing up and learning about music with Mozart. I used to be obsessed with my father’s LP collection, and to me, Mozart is the sound of a Friday evening before bed, the needle gently touching the grooves, my parents and I tucked under a plaid blanket on the living room couch.

When CDs made their appearance in the mid-80’s my dad started buying as much Mozart as he could lay his hands on, and at the time, you couldn’t get more technologically advanced than that: those were the first recordings that had been engineered with the CD format in mind, maximising the 70-plus minutes recording time, which meant that you could now have 3 concerti on the same disc!
I remember one of them: a very old man, almost cartoon-like in the way he smiled and in his penchant for extravagant bowties, playing concerto n.23 and piano sonata K.333. The whole CD just sounded so easy and effortless, the melody sounding as though it had just been thought of. The very old man also happened to be Vladimir Horowitz, the greatest pianist of the XXth Century, and that was one of his final recordings. No wonder it sounded like a little miracle.

As I was growing up, I started to think that Mozart was too simple and almost too easy on the ear, too “classical”. It wasn’t as emotional as romantic music, or as radical as early XXth Century, and to use a contemporary comparison, it all seemed too “pop music” to retain any particular interest. Mozart was for kids.

Except that I couldn’t have been further from the truth. It takes real genius to make the piano sound so obvious and profound at the same time, and it takes more maturity than you would think to be able to extract all the nuances that Mozart had intended. As a composer, Mozart will stay with you all your life, and I suppose that’s why Horowitz had decided to go back to him for one of his last studio performances. And maybe this is the ultimate reward: you only get to play like a child after a lifetime of experience. The knowledge that your time is up, that everything is behind you now, and that you still have time for one more performance, one more take: how could it not be Mozart?

———————-
first movement

The recording was filmed, and the documentary shows what goes on in the studio for a classical recording session. The way Horowitz’s hands dance on the keyboard is slightly unreal: he is well in his 80s, but the music has never sounded so youthful. The whole orchestra watches and plays in a mix of reverence, admiration and fear…

———————-

second movement

You can hear Beethoven and Schubert here. In fact, you can hear Romantic music, and to go back to an earlier post, this piece bears a certain affinity with some of Mono’s compositions too. The theme is operatic in tone, the solo is overtly emotional without being bombastic, and the use of dissonances and key changes adds complexity to its natural sadness. I can’t see how it cannot be in my top 3.

———————-

third movement

In typical fashion, things end lightly in Mozart’s piano concerti, and here we bid farewell in the most pleasant way. It’s such a pleasure to watch Horowitz play, listen to the orchestra and interact with the players. There is so much spirit and grace in his performance. If I knew I could age like this, I wouldn’t mind being a grumpy old man when the time comes.

———————-