OUP accepted manuscript

Abstract

Studies of Mozart’s D-Minor Piano Concerto and especially of commentaries on Beethoven’s cadenza for its first movement have prompted this analyst to investigate their claims in preparation for a performance. For Richard Kramer, Beethoven’s first-movement cadenza outrageously “violates” the composer’s Mozartean legacy; in response, I come to Beethoven’s defense. I examine the measure of his engagement with Mozart’s text—its formal, motivic, and dramatic content. Beethoven might easily have discovered the concerto’s remarkable, even novel, intermovement relations, ones that may have seemed visionary. He might even have grasped what Heinrich Schenker would call “the primary tone,” repeatedly prolonged by its upper neighbor; his “last word” in the cadenza throws that tone and its neighbor into impassioned relief. Given such details, pianists who choose to play Beethoven’s cadenza might find new impetus for performing “Beethoven” and “Mozart” in synergy within a single movement.