John Chen Photo: John Chen
Performed by John Chen and the Auckland Chamber Orchestra conducted by Peter Scholes at its concert in the Raye Freedman Arts Centre, Auckland, 29 April 2018.
This Piano Concerto was Mozart’s last and in it he pulls back to a smaller scale than he’d been writing in in the concertos that preceded it. He was poverty-stricken and near death and he’d seemingly given up aiming to please the general Viennese audience with brilliant display.
But the piece is adventurous in its harmonic language. And the last movement contains a reference to a children’s song he’d written called “Longing for Spring”.
So … another response to the feeling of nostalgia perhaps – providing a link to the other earlier pieces in this concert.
Recorded: Raye Freedman Arts Centre, Epsom Girls Grammar School, 29 April 2018
Producer: Tim Dodd
Engineer: Adrian Hollay