Wanda Landowska’s cadenzas for W.A. Mozart’s Piano concerto in d minor KV 466 from a comparative perspective
Journal Title: Edukacja Muzyczna - Year 2015, Vol 10, Issue 10
Abstract
Wanda Landowska, who is an outstanding interpreter of early music and educator, intended in her youth to be a composer. She composed piano pieces and songs, a fair number of chamber music pieces and cadenzas for several concertos that she herself performed. Among her cadenzas there are compositions for keyboard concertos of three composers: G.F. Haendel, J. Haydn and W.A. Mozart. They are not examples of virtuoso pieces, but rather belong to the subgenre of cadenza called hinzukomponiert in the German literature. Each of them is a kind of Landowska’s erudite commentary on the style of the original work. What distinguishes them is the presence of advanced compositional techniques, in particular - the counterpoint (the composer’s favorite one). They show the author’s deep knowledge of the history of music and her good understanding of compositional techniques from different periods. At the same time they are substantially in line with the compositions to which they were created. The aim of this article is to present typical strategies of the composer, using as an example cadenzas for only one concerto – Mozart’s Piano concerto in d minor KV 466 (1st and 3rd movement). This choice is associated on the one hand with the fact that they present a variety of elements typical of Landowska’s compositional métier, on the other – many other composers have written cadenzas for this piano masterpiece, which gives us a broad range of comparisons. Thus there is a great opportunity to compare Landowska’s interpretation with the work of others and to show the similarities and differences.
Authors and Affiliations
Katarzyna Babulewicz
Keywords
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- EP ID EP758562
- DOI https://doi.org/10.16926/em.2015.10.01
- Views 36
- Downloads 0
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