How Mozart Concertos Helped Me
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was an Austrian composer and musician who began learning how to compose and play piano at the age of four. Mozart wrote four horn concertos in his time which were intended to be performed by his good friend and musical inspiration, Joseph Leutgeb. Leutgeb was a famous horn player who had many composers seeking him to perform their material. At the time these concertos were written, horns were very difficult to play because valves weren’t invented yet. This meant there had to be very hard work put in along with great talent and technique for the correct pitch to be found. Moreover, horns were used to play hunting fanfares which is what a lot of Mozart’s concertos included. In fact, Mozart described this concerto as being composed for Waldhorn which translates to “woods or forest horn” which is an alternative name for the French horn that has connotations with hunting.
Mozart’s Horn Concerto No.4 in E flat major was composed in 1786 and follows the typical fast-slow-fast three movement design of the classical concerto. The three movements being named: allegro moderato, a romance and a rondo finale with cadenza. The first movement that I will be playing is in sonata form with a 4/4 time signature. There is a lot of requirements needing of the lip as Mozart has added many trills and although they are difficult for the instrument, they are the only ornamentation Mozart includes in this movement.
The original performance of this piece was famous horn player Leitgeb who was a very close friend of Mozart. In this concerto, Mozart used lip trills which Leitgeb performed excellently, creating a strong horn technique. Moving on however, many versions of this concerto have been performed by other horn players who all play it differently as well. For example, Allan Civil performed the first movement at a tempo of 120 beats per minute, whereas Radovan Vlatkovic performed it at 122 and Hermann Baumann performed it at 124. Writing for solo horn would have been somewhat difficult as many of the harmonics are close together at the top of the instrument’s range, meaning it is easy to split notes (‘fall off’ a note or play the wrong note).
Mozart was known for takin the simple musical style of early Classical period and developing it into something more sophisticated, expressive and refined. He developed straightforward musical forms into complex, large-scale structures, consequently expanding the expressive range of music. He also has composed for many different instruments in different genres, but he was particularly fond in composing for the clarinet and horn, which compositions have become central to the repertoire of these instruments.
For preparation of this performance I have studied the score thoroughly and got inspiration from watching live recordings of the concerto online. However, my aim is to perform the piece in my own way. My overall aims for the performance are to catch the audience’s attention from the start until the end and to keep them totally engaged throughout. I also want to take this opportunity to play freely with the tempo to a certain extent. Mozart’s tempo annotations are not indications of the desired tempo for certain. Therefore, I feel as though I could find my way around the connotation of the melody and find a tempo that suited me, which also reflected on how I think the piece was interpreted to be played.
Challenges I think I will have to face include reaching the note ‘top c’ note (c3) and playing other notes at this register, before stretching down to the note ‘g’ below the bottom ledger line. I will have to, therefore, keep practice playing at this high register so on the day of the performance I am not thinking specifically on not reaching the notes. Moreover, once I make way with this, I will be able to focus on how these top high and low notes express a melodic character in the movement. Another of my challenges I will face is in training my lip. I will have to have better control of my embouchure (tension and position of the lips) and airflow to play the melody accurately. Additionally, this will be a challenge as many of the lines contain rapid repeated notes, so I will have to have strong and consistent control of tonguing to produce an even and well-articulated line. Another challenge I faced was learning how to interpret certain passages in this movement as there is such a lack of dynamics, I had to really think about how I could best create a clear, conveying, emotional performance. I will do this by continuing to practice the movement with different characteristics involving dynamics until I find one I am happy with.
With the knowledge of past horn concertos by Mozart, including his personal life, the classical period and how Leitgeb performed them, I was able to find my personal style for my performance of the piece. This helped me put more musicality into my work, along with personality as having done background research, it gave me clear ideas about the piece and how I was going to perform it. With this in mind, hopefully I can improve along the way and keep on adding new musical ideas which the audience can notice as well.
