Piano Concertos

These three piano concertos provide new insights: two discoveries from the classical era that alter our perspective on the seemingly familiar. Giovanni Battista Martini was a leading music theoretician of his time. His compositions caused a sensation. His many pupils included Johann Christian Bach. Christoph Willibald Gluck, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Johann Franz Xaver Sterkel sought musical instruction from him. His piano concerto is particularly remarkable for it's songful lyricism, whose expressiveness is far ahead of what was customary at the time. Johann Franz Xaver Sterkel worked as a court musician, and from 1802 directed the court music in Aschaffenburg. We know of contacts with Beethoven and Carl Maria von Weber. The piano concerto in D major is characterized by clear structure and instrumental virtuosity. The piano concerto in D minorK466 is one of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's greatest works. Comparing it to the now almost forgotten concertos by Sterkel and Martini yields an added perspective: it is a psychological drama, in which we encounter Mozart's matchless genius.