Among the twenty-seven clavier concertos that Mozart left for posterity, two of them, traditionally numbered Seven and Ten, were composed for two and three instruments. The genre of such concerto for several instruments dating back to baroque concerti grossi was frequently enough used by the Viennese classics, especially by Mozart. Apart from the concertos featured on this disc, Mozart also penned Concertone for Two Violins, KV 190, Sinfonia Concertante for Four Winds, KV 297b, Concerto for Flute and Harp, KV 299, and a famous Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola, KV 364.
Mozart created his Concerto for Three Pianos in February 1776 in his native Salzburg for Countess Antonia Lodron and her two daughters Aloysia and Giuseppa. The composer was quite content with his work and while in Germany wrote his father about two especially successful performances of the piece in Augsburg on the 22nd of October, 1777 (where he played the part of the second instrument himself) and in Mannheim on the 12th of March, 1778. Mozart also made a rendition for two claviers supplementing this version with solo cadenzas he wrote with his own hand.
That was the reason why in one of his letters to his father the composer named his Concerto for Two Pianos, KV 365, “second” (also in a French edition of 1802). Mozart wrote this “second” concerto in his home town as well, but after his voyage to Mannheim and Paris – in 1779. That is where the significant stylistic differences between the two compositions come from although only three years separate them. Compared with its ‘nearest relation’, this concerto is distinguished with equal and well-developed solo parts involved in an intense competition with both the orchestra and each other. Mozart composed the piece for himself and his sister and a gifted pianist Maria Anna. In 1781, the composer performed the concerto in Vienna with his pupil Josephine Auernhammer having re-edited the score before the performance: he added two clarinets, two trumpets and timpani to the parts of strings, two bassoons and two French horns (unfortunately, the Viennese edition has been lost).
Mozart’s concertos for two and three claviers are indeed not that often heard as his similar pieces for one instrument. However, for more than two centuries, pianists and conductors of various performing schools and styles have included them in their repertoire.
