Mozart Helper... by Grieg

[robcat2075]

If you took piano lessons you probably played at least one movement of the famous Mozart Sonata in C.

But did you know there was a whole piano missing from your performance? Grieg thought so...





Nailed it!

[PosauneCat]

If you took piano lessons you probably played at least one movement of the famous Mozart Sonata in C.

But did you know there was a whole piano missing from your performance? Grieg thought so...





Nailed it!

That’s pretty fascinating. Albeit, it is a great example of gilding the lily. What I find most disturbing is the mixture of classical and romantic idioms. It offends my musicological sensibilities.

[PosauneCat]

P.S. I enjoyed your videos and the Spacepod movie is very nicely done!

[ithinknot]

Intolerable, but as something to hack through at the Pleyel double grand après liquid lunch... why not.

[PosauneCat]

Intolerable, but as something to hack through at the Pleyel double grand après liquid lunch... why not.

I only listened to the first mvt initially. I just heard the 2nd! It’s hideous. Grieg was a fine composer, but he clearly missed the mark with this atrocity.

[hyperbolica]

As a guy who does some arranging, I find the mixing of metaphors is what is most interesting here. Hideous? Really? It's masterful in its own way, even if you only consider it as an exercise in writing/arranging. A trombone player offended by modifying Mozart is going to be a lonely boy.

[robcat2075]

P.S. I enjoyed your videos and the Spacepod movie is very nicely done!

Thank you, very much!

What I find most disturbing is the mixture of classical and romantic idioms. It offends my musicological sensibilities.

It's like that scene in "Holiday Inn" (1942) where the classical minuet keeps getting interrupted by jazz.

But it turns out to be a respected piece in its own right. Big names like Sviatoslav Richter (with Elisabeth Leonskaja) and Martha Argerich (with Piotr Anderszewski) have performed this... in public.

Here are a few notes from another performance on YouTube...

On 27 May 1877 Edvard Grieg wrote to his publisher: "During the winter I have been engaged on a task that I found particulary interesting - adding a free, second piano to several of Mozart's sonatas. The work was intended in the first instance for teaching purposes but by chance found its way into the concert hall, where the whole thing sounded surprisingly good."


Grieg himself went some way towards preempting potential protests by insisting that his arrangements were intended for teaching. Such a line of argument obliges to examine the customs of the time - an age in which the gramaphone was barely a glint in its investor's eye and there was no opportunity to hear and follow interpretations at second hand. As a result, it was common practice around 1880 for piano teachers to accompany their pupils on a second piano, either to ensure the correct tempo or, perhaps, to make the soloist's solitary existance somewhat less intolerable...

And here is an orchestral version of Grieg's addition...

[PosauneCat]

P.S. I enjoyed your videos and the Spacepod movie is very nicely done!

Thank you, very much!

What I find most disturbing is the mixture of classical and romantic idioms. It offends my musicological sensibilities.

It's like that scene in "Holiday Inn" (1942) where the classical minuet keeps getting interrupted by jazz.

But it turns out to be a respected piece in its own right. Big names like Sviatoslav Richter (with Elisabeth Leonskaja) and Martha Argerich (with Piotr Anderszewski) have performed this... in public.

Here are a few notes from another performance on YouTube...

On 27 May 1877 Edvard Grieg wrote to his publisher: "During the winter I have been engaged on a task that I found particulary interesting - adding a free, second piano to several of Mozart's sonatas. The work was intended in the first instance for teaching purposes but by chance found its way into the concert hall, where the whole thing sounded surprisingly good."


Grieg himself went some way towards preempting potential protests by insisting that his arrangements were intended for teaching. Such a line of argument obliges to examine the customs of the time - an age in which the gramaphone was barely a glint in its investor's eye and there was no opportunity to hear and follow interpretations at second hand. As a result, it was common practice around 1880 for piano teachers to accompany their pupils on a second piano, either to ensure the correct tempo or, perhaps, to make the soloist's solitary existance somewhat less intolerable...

And here is an orchestral version of Grieg's addition...

Good lord! Who would have guessed!?