Chapter 3: "Larghetto" from Mozart Piano Concerto No.26, K.537, as Interpreted by Reinecke
3.1 Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.26 in D major K. 537 and His Autograph
According to his own catalogue, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) finished his Piano Concerto No.26 K.537 on 24 February 1788.1 In April 1789, during a concert tour,
Mozart mentioned in his letter to his wife, Constanze Mozart (1762-1842), that he had just performed this concerto in Dresden on the 14th of the same month. In October 1790, it was
performed at the coronation of Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II (1747-1792) in Frankfurt am Main on the 15th and 22nd of October, where the concerto gained the nickname
“Coronation”.
The most unusual thing about this concerto is that the left-hand part is missing in places in the autograph, especially in the second movement, where no left-hand part is written
at all. At the time, Mozart played the piano part himself, so he did not need to write it down, and the concerto was not published during his lifetime. When Mozart composed the
concerto in 1788, his popularity was low. During his most successful period from 1784 to 1786, he wrote eleven piano concertos in just three years, most of which were for
concert series in Vienna. However, in 1787, the concerts were no longer held because he was unable to garner a proper audience anymore. The piano concertos of his popular years
often contained his own cadenzas when they were published, which he envisaged other pianists or his pupils could play, even if they did not have outstanding improvisational or
compositional skills. However, Mozart never had the opportunity to add anything to this concerto No.26 for publication.
Nevertheless, every modern-day pianist now plays this concerto with the completed notation for both hands, taking it for granted. The left-hand part was supplemented when the
first edition was published in 1794, three years after Mozart's death, and it was believed to be written by publisher Johann André (1741-1799). However, Carl Reinecke and Johann
Nepomuk Hummel (1778-1837), a pupil of Mozart, both used André’s supplementary left hand without any modifications in their own solo piano arrangements. It can be said that his
edition is still conventionally accepted without doubt, probably because of its similarity to the extremely simple accompaniment that complements the orchestral part as written by
Mozart. How Mozart himself played it, of course, no one knows. It is highly likely that he played the left hand differently every time in each of his three known public performances of
the concert. As for the right-hand ornamentation, we may infer how he would have added variations from the embellished version of the Adagio K.488 by Mozart's pupil Barbara
Ployer (Fig.4)2 and from his other piano pieces.
1. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Thematic catalogue 1784-1791 (Offenbach, 1828).
2. Ployer, Barbara. Embellished version of the solo part of the Adagio from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.23, K.488, Manuscript.
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