Past events listed in the Cornucopia arts diary
Saturday February 01: 15:00
Saturday February 08: 15:00
Wednesday February 12: 20:00
Wednesday February 26: 20:00
Thursday February 27: 20:00
When, in 1785, the publisher Franz Anton Hoffmeister commissioned Mozart to write three piano quartets, he did not know what he was letting himself in for. What he presumably expected were some amiable drawing room pieces *a la* J. C. Bach or Schobert; what he got was the first great piano quartet ever composed, *and* in G minor, a key Mozart never used lightly. When the Viennese public objected that the piece was ‘too difficult’, Mozart generously released Hoffmeister from his contract; yet he did compose a more equable, if not less difficult, companion piece in E flat the following year, which was subsequently issued by another Viennese publisher, Artaria. ... The two works ... display a masterly fusion of *concertante* keyboard writing and the purest chamber music style ... .
Issue 67, December 2024
Beauty in the Wilderness
