Concerto
By the start of the Classical period the concerto grosso had fallen out of favour.
The great Classical composers, Haydn and particularly Mozart, opted generally for a three movement pattern established for solo concertos in the Baroque period.
Of the composers above, Mozart was by far the most prolific, composing 27 piano concertos, six for violin, four for French horn, three for flute, one each for oboe, clarinet and bassoon. He also wrote several for different combinations of instruments of which two are the Concerto for Flute and Harp and the Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola.
The main features of the music
Almost all of these concertos were in three movements, generally speaking, quite fast, slow and fast, with most adopting new forms for the distinctive movements.
First movement
(Horns of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. Photograph:Peter Devlin).
Fast and usually in sonata form. This was a sophisticated development of the binary and ternary forms of earlier centuries and is sometimes called compound binary form or first movement form. It contained three main sections, the exposition, development and recapitulation.
This form was used for the first movement for most styles of music in the Classical period, such as symphony, sonata and chamber music.
It was normal for the exposition to be repeated.
The concerto had a double exposition with the soloist usually entering after the first exposition and adding additional decoration and material to the music already heard.
Listen to the start of a first movement of Mozart’s Horn Concerto No. 3. This is the first exposition.
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Now listen to the second exposition with the solo instrument added.
After the recapitulation the soloist usually played a cadenza, a brilliant solo passage in which the soloist showed off his or her ability on the instrument. It was originally intended that the soloist improvise the cadenza; however as time passed, composers wrote out a complete cadenza for the soloist to play. Listen to the cadenza from the first movement of Mozart’s Horn Concerto No. 3. Notice how the excerpt begins with an orchestral crescendo ending on a dominant 7th chord, then listen to the cadenza which ends with a trill as the orchestra then begins the coda or ending of the movement.
Now listen to the coda, the ending of the movement, and the final orchestral perfect cadence.
For a full explanation visit sonata form in the Form pages in this web site. If possible also listen to and watch the section on sonata form, a movement from a Mozart symphony, on the CD/DVD ‘Music Works’.
Second movement
This was slow and was usually in a simple form such as ternary form, theme and variations or perhaps even in sonata form or a simplified sonata form without a development section. Listen to an excerpt from the slow movement of Piano Concerto No. 27 by Mozart. This movement has a roughly ternary form shape with the excerpt illustrating the beginning with the solo piano playing the main theme of the movement.
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Third movement
This was usually fast and very often a rondo having the shape ABAC(DA). This was particularly true in the horn concertos. Listen to the whole of the rondo from Horn Concerto No. 4 by Mozart. There are two versions of this recording; the first one has the sections cued in with a voice,
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and the second the recording without cues.
Further listening
The horn concertos of Mozart are probably the most concise for study and for gaining some kind of grasp of the forms. However, it would be important to listen to further excerpts.
Listen to this excerpt from Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 27 which begins at the end of the first exposition and as the piano enters. Notice the use of typical Mozart devices, alberti bass, sequence, ornaments and also a beautiful modulation to a minor key at the start of the second subject.
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Listen to any movement of another concerto, preferably a violin or woodwind one by Mozart or the trumpet or cello concertos of Haydn.