Piano Concerto No. 7 (Mozart)

Concerto for three pianos
No. 7 "Lodron"
by W. A. Mozart
Pianoforte by Johann Andreas Stein (Augsburg, 1775) – Berlin, Musikinstrumenten-Museum
Key	F major
Catalogue	K. 242
Composed	1776 (1776), rev. 1780
Movements	Three (Allegro, Adagio, Tempo di minuetto)
Scoring	3 pianos orchestra

In 1776, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed three piano concertos, one of which was the Concerto for three pianos and orchestra in F major, No. 7, K. 242. He originally finished it in February 1776 for three pianos; however, when he eventually recomposed it for himself and another pianist in 1780 in Salzburg, he rearranged it for two pianos, and that is how the piece is often performed today. The concerto is often nicknamed "Lodron" because it was commissioned by Countess Antonia Lodron to be played with her two daughters Aloysia and Giuseppa.

The concerto is scored for 2 oboes, 2 horns, 3 solo pianos and strings. It has 3 movements:

1. Allegro ⁴
   ₄
2. Adagio in B♭ major ⁴
   ₄
3. Rondo: Tempo di minuetto ³
   ₄

Girdlestone, in his Mozart and his Piano Concertos, describes the concerto and compares one of the themes of its slow movement to similar themes that turn up in later concertos – especially No. 25, K. 503 – in more developed forms.

The first British performance was given by the New Queen's Hall Orchestra at The Proms, Queen's Hall on 12 September 1907. The soloists were Henry Wood, York Bowen and Frederick Kiddle, under the baton of Henri Verbrugghen.

External links

•  Konzert in F für drei bzw. zwei Klaviere („Lodron-Konzert“). KV 242: Score and critical report (in German) in the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe
• Piano Concerto No. 7: Scores at the International Music Score Library Project
• Article, source for dates above. Quotes Alfred Einstein's Mozart: His Character, His Work. Einstein discusses the work briefly – two lines in two pages – dismissing it as the least of Mozart's concertos with piano.
• Morrison, Michael. Concerto for 3 (or 2) pianos & orchestra in F major ("Lodron," "Concerto No. 7"), K. 242 at AllMusic
• Performance (audio) by Robert Casadesus, Gaby Casadesus, Jean Casadesus and Eugene Ormandy conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1963 – via Internet Archive