1. Carl Reinecke, Zur Wiederbelebung der Mozart’schen Clavier-Concerte (Leipzig: 1891), edited by Stefan Schönknecht, Heribert Koch (Leipzig: Reinecke Musikverlag, 2006), 7.
2. Ibid, 49.
3. Ibid, 17-18.
4. Ibid, 15.
5. Ibid, 25-26.
6. Ibid.44.
7. Ibid. 51.
8. Seidel, Carl Reinecke und das Leipziger Gewandhaus, 123. See also ”zum Konzert vom 14.03.1861”, Die Musikzeitschrift Signale für die musikalische Welt March 21, 1861, Vol.19:203.
9, Carl Reinecke, Zur Wiederbelebung der Mozart’schen Clavier-Concerte, 37-38.
10. Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Klavierkonzert D-Dur KV.537 “Krönungskonzert”, arrangement for piano solo. Braunschweig: H. Litolff, n.d. [1871].
11. Ibid,
12. Reinecke, Zur Wiederbelebung der Mozart’schen Clavier-Concerte, 53.
13. Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus. Twenty Piano Compositions: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Edited by Carl Reinecke (Boston: O. Ditson Company, 1906), xv.
14. Carl Reinecke, Die Beethovenschen Clavier-Sonaten: Briefe an eine Freundin (Leipzig, Germany: 1895); trans. E. M. Trevenen Dawson as The Beethoven Pianoforte Sonatas: Letters to a Lady (London: Augener, 1898), 139.
15. Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus. Twenty Piano Compositions: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Edited by Carl Reinecke, xiii.
16. Carl Reinecke, Zur Wiederbelebung der Mozart’schen Clavier-Concerte, 51.
There is a big difference between the piano in 1843, when Reinecke met Mendelssohn and Schumann at the age of 19, and the piano of his later years at the beginning of the
20th-century, in terms of the action or the weight of the keys and so on. When considering that Reinecke was born in 1824, perhaps there were fortepianos in his youth that were
reminiscent of those from Mozart's time, and perhaps he may have had the opportunity to play them. As Reinecke had experienced this significant evolution of the piano in his long
musical life, he also had the idea of using the full potential of the pianos available to him at the time. How much Reinecke's performance changed with the development of pianos and
what he retained in his tradition is difficult to discern only from the recordings of his later years. He wrote: "True piety occurs when one interprets in the spirit and meaning of the
masters, not when one slavishly follows their writings”7
Now, let us return to the Larghetto itself. This concerto was an important part of Reinecke’s repertoire, and it was a piece he performed as a soloist in his first season as conductor
of the Gewandhaus Orchestra. According to the Musikzeitschrift Signale für die musikalische Welt, he “proved that he does not need bravura and brilliant passages to make an impact,
but that he can also go quite far with grace and tasteful freedom.”8
This second movement was in particularly special for Reinecke, and he wrote:
In the following Larghetto, one of Mozart's most beautiful inspirations, the player is asked to play the theme four times and to vary it three times according to the principle I have
laid out above. Now I must confess that I have not been faithful to my own principle, that is to say that I always play the theme without any melismatic variation, for the simple
reason that no alternative that I have ever thought of has seemed worthy of embellishing this theme, which is so infinitely charming despite its simplicity.9
On the other hand, he criticizes Johann Nepomuk Hummel’s (1778-1837) arrangement10 as using the
most banal and easily invented variants, which disfigure rather than decorate the beautiful theme.11
Indeed, in the score, Reinecke does not add any ornamentation to the theme's melody. However, in the
recording, one can hear that a chromatic internal voice is added during the theme's return from bar 72
(Audio 6). There was a 14-year gap between 1891 when he wrote the book, and 1905 when he recorded it
on the piano roll; I suspect he continued experimenting with various variations on the theme whenever
he had opportunities to play this movement. In Hummel's arrangement, which had been the target of his
criticism, the four-note “A” of the theme’s melody is embellished in the second and third repetitions with
added appoggiaturas (Fig.7) and a change to triplets in octaves (Fig.8). Overall, the delicate
ornamentation of the right hand in Hummel’s arrangement is noticeable and gives the impression of
being more flamboyant than Reinecke’s.
Regarding the tempo, Reinecke explains:
Although a Mozart concerto movement, like any symphonic movement, cannot and must not be played to the beat of the metronome, there is nevertheless a huge difference between a gentle transition to a tempo that differs by only a few nuances and is not even perceptible to the listener, and the manner that has become fashionable, even among conductors, of making noticeable tempo changes within an organically structured symphonic movement with a certain degree of ostentation.12
In contrast to his description, the tempo changes in Reinecke’s recordings seem rather larger than
gentle, especially compared to today's standards. However, when one attempts to quantify Reinecke’s
actual tempo changes using a metronome, one can find that his tempo change is even more significant
and more frequent than what can be heard. His refined control makes his tempo transition sounds
always gradual and quite natural.
As we have seen, there are contradictions in Reinecke's performance, notation, and explanation. He was also aware of the limitations of the explanation of the music and the
notation in the score. He describes the limitation of the language: “[...] how insufficient language is to convey instruction regarding such things is felt by the musician at every renewed
attempt [...].”13 There is also “much to be read between the lines which no composer can convey by signs, no editor by explanations [,]”14 and he explains these gaps as being correct
and beautiful in performances. In other words, the difference between correct and beautiful performance is that there are things that are embodied in performance that cannot be
written down in a score nor explained in words. Reinecke writes:
A correct execution may be learned; one characterized by beauty, intelligence and soul can be learned only when the player possesses the capacity to recognize and to interpret
the general meaning inherent in a piece of music, and likewise, the constantly changing moods that recur in it, according to his nature.15
For him, the way to reproduce the composer’s spirit is to feel with intelligence and aesthetics even what the composer could not write down in the score, and to reproduce it by using
the full potential of the instruments available and not adding anything contrary to the composer’s intention. These words, and therefore the concept itself, would be in line with the
views of most today’s musicians. What is different between past and present performance practice is mainly defined by how they understood and executed the parts that were not in
the score.
He concludes the section on K.537 in his book with these words: “I will be proud and happy if one day I know that I have inspired one or other of them to revive Mozart's
concertos, and that one or another of my suggestions has been kindly received and followed.”16
Chapter 3: "Larghetto" from Mozart Piano Concerto No.26, K.537, as Interpreted by Reinecke
3.3 Reinecke's Book "Zur Wiederbelebung der Mozart'schen Clavier-Concerte"
Reinecke wrote his book Zur Wiederbelebung der Mozart'schen Clavier-Concerte in 1891, 100 years after Mozart's death. In this book, he argues that the pianists are obliged to
change some notes to a certain extent when performing Mozart’s piano concertos, since Mozart did not write down many things in his concertos as he played them himself and the
concert pianists in Mozart's time were given much greater independence than they are today.1 An example would be the addition of cadences and short transitions when a main
theme returns after a fermata, or to add something in sketched passages as necessary alternations. Tasteful variations are also desirable, especially in the case of immediate successive
repetitions of short motifs or sequences.2 He asserts the justification by citing CPE Bach, Hummel, and others.3 These claims were apparently not common at the time, and Reinecke
wrote: “And because I allowed myself to fill in the gaps of such sketches in a modest way on the occasion of the performance of the aforementioned concerto, I was accused of
"vandalism" by a critic at the time! A strange feeling indeed for a musician who has spent his life worshipping and cultivating Mozart and who has, as it were, thought about every note
in his concertos in order to be able to reproduce them in Mozart's spirit!”4
He also clarifies that he is willing to change the accompaniment form and register to adapt it to the modern piano, but it has to be aligned with Mozart's intentions:
I must not conceal the fact that I believe that our modern ear has been spoiled by modern piano writing with regard to the fullness of sound that it expects and demands from the
pianoforte. It is so much so that Mozart's writing must sometimes seem too meagre to it, especially in the accompaniment part, and that I therefore allow myself in certain places
to spread out such accompaniment formulas, which do not affect the musical idea at all. It goes without saying that this must be done in a modest way, and not in such a manner
that Mozart's character may be blurred. [...] Furthermore, it seems to me that it would be appropriate to make use of the wide range of our modern grand pianos in places where
the five-octave piano of the time could not do the job [...].5
Reinecke even says that if the modern piano had been available to Mozart in his time, he would have used the larger range.6 Even today, this logic is often brought up in debates about
whether pedals should be used in J.S.Bach’s pieces when playing them on a modern piano, or whether Beethoven would be more suitable on a modern piano than on a fortepiano,
and so on. His point here is that he is not trying to reproduce the actual sound that Mozart heard but rather to reproduce the spirit of that sound. Instead of limiting the expression of
the late 19th-century piano to match the range and expressiveness of Mozart's fortepiano of the time, Reinecke attempts to recreate the expression Mozart produced on the 5-octave
piano, using full potential of his more modern piano.
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