Piano Arrangements Of Mozart Concertos And Cadenzas By Hummel

A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF PIANO ARRANGEMENTS OF MOZART PIANO CONCERTOS AND CADENZAS BY HUMMEL WITH THEIR MODELS: STYLE, PERFORMANCE ISSUES, AND AESTHETICS
Student Name: Grace Qin
Date: 25/10/2017
Abstract
Johann Nepumik Hummel’s linkage with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart started in the year 1786 at a time when the very young Hummel was living with the family of Mozart in their home for 2 years. While there, Hummel (1778-1837) took part in both Mozart’s private and public life, and he came into direct contact with every work that came out in those years which were without doubt amongst the most fertile of Mozart’s whole career. Mozart's piano concerto is one large body of work which always has a greater concern in relation to the style, aesthetics and instruments used. It is for this reason a doctoral programme concerned with a performance-led and comparison study of the Hummel’s arrangement of Mozart’s works would be a valuable contribution to the field of piano study. It is of note that Johann Nepumik Hummel was a witness to the creation of many of these works and he without doubt saw Mozart perform them. As such, his arrangements of these works provide a unique insight into Mozart as a performer of his works as well as how Hummel approached them about 4 years later in a musical world that was radically different than that of his youth. In addition to that, here in this study, the aim of this paper is to discover and develop a method for understanding well the differences between the different editions through practice. The study will investigate the sources of Mozart’s concertos that Hummel had at his disposal in the 1820s and the relationship of those editions/copies to Mozart’s originals. From this philological base, it would be possible to examine the works through practice. The proposed study will look into how performance styles have changed over the course of a generation both as a result of the development of the instrument and changing fashions. In this investigation, the paper will examine Hummel’s arrangement of Mozart’s concerto and cadenzas to find out how these relate to the originals.
Research Question
The main research question for the proposed research is:
How were Hummel’s arrangements of Mozart’s works related to the original works?
Sub-questions
The sub-questions that underpin/inform the main research are:
What sources of Mozart’s concertos did Hummel have at his disposal in the 1820s and how do those editions/copies relate to Mozart’s originals?
How did the editions of Mozart’s works evolve over a given period as both instruments and performance aesthetics changed? Exploring how the approach to performing these works changed?
How did Hummel his own style of playing had clearly moved far beyond the Mozartian ideal of the 1780s?
Hummel’s arrangement writing for very different instruments from Mozart’s. What kind of revelation may through on the evolution of performance practice?
What are the differences between Mozart's and other cadenzas from different composers or different editions of Mozart’s piano concertos as a gauge of changing attitudes to the works?
Context
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