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Piano Concerto .​.​. Mozartiana (2007)

by Thomas Oboe Lee

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1.
Mozartiana 01 09:04
2.
Mozartiana 02 11:37

about

It is with great pleasure that I have had this opportunity to write my very first piano concerto for my next-door neighbor and friend, Robert Levin.

The virtuoso pianist Robert Levin and the music of Mozart are an inseparable pairing. I knew immediately that I had to include some Mozart in this stew. For my “Mozartiana,” I went to the complete Mozart edition and looked for some incomplete melodic or thematic fragments that I could “steal” as themes and motives for my concerto. The concerto is in four sections – slow-fast, slow-fast. Perhaps I should say that the work is in two movements – in each movement the music begins slowly, then shifts gear and becomes fast. Out of the four themes in this work, three of them are based on Mozart fragments.

The first movement begins with a slow theme in D-minor. The material is derivative of a Mozart fragment in D-major – a “Kyrie” theme for chorus and orchestra. At measure 80 the orchestra goes into a fast romp. The material for this section has nothing to do with Mozart. Texturally, it sounds like a four-part counterpoint display in the style of Bach.

The second movement theme is taken from a Mozart fragment originally intended for an orchestral overture. Its main characteristic is a melodic turn followed by a zig-zagging arpeggio theme. The fast music that follows, a mad scherzo, once again at measure 80, is based on a Mozart fragment in triple meter that he sketched for an unfinished string quintet.

When I showed Robert Levin the score recently, he said he was quite surprised that he did not recognize the Mozart fragments. “When I read through the score,” he told me, “it sounded like your characteristic TOL music.” Well, I have to say I was quite relieved and pleased. It is OK to “steal” from the Salzburg Genius, but it is more important that the stolen material should go through a filtering process resulting in something that is recognizably my music and not Mozart’s.

Incidentally, Mr. Levin is well known for his improvised cadenzas in concertos by Mozart and Beethoven. Toward the end of the second movement, I gave him ample room to improvise to his heart’s content.

credits

released June 5, 2017

Robert Levin, piano

Boston Modern Orchestra Project
Gil Rose, music director

Music by Thomas Oboe Lee

© Departed Feathers Music, Inc. - BMI - 2007

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Thomas Oboe Lee Cambridge, Massachusetts

Thomas Oboe Lee was born in China in 1945. He lived in São Paulo, Brazil, for six years before coming to the United States in 1966. After graduating from the University of Pittsburgh, he studied composition at the New England Conservatory and Harvard University. He has been a member of the music faculty at Boston College since 1990. ... more

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