# Ashkenazy insert a line of nontes into Mozart Piano concerto no.13



## APL (Oct 27, 2018)

Ashkenazy insert a line of notes into the beginning of Mozart Piano concerto no.13 (at 1 min 50sec) when he enters. It is on Cd of Decca, 1995, Mozart Piano Concertos, Ashkenazy Philh. Orch. 
I have heard several different concertos by different pianist but non of them did it. I looked up the booklet of Ashkenazy's and found no reference to it. 

Who others of you knows anything about it. Is there any version of sheet of notes that Ashkenazy might have used.?


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

APL said:


> Ashkenazy insert a line of notes into the beginning of Mozart Piano concerto no.13 (at 1 min 50sec) when he enters. It is on Cd of Decca, 1995, Mozart Piano Concertos, Ashkenazy Philh. Orch.
> I have heard several different concertos by different pianist but non of them did it. I looked up the booklet of Ashkenazy's and found no reference to it.
> 
> Who others of you knows anything about it. Is there any version of sheet of notes that Ashkenazy might have used.?


This is typical of not just ashkenazy but many pianists who unnecessarily ornament the piano part.

It irritates the hell out of me


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

Gulda had the habit too, for example. I often like it.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Back in those days it was common and even expected that performers would ad lib and add their own thoughts on a performance. Kind of like jazz in a way. The printed music wasn't the Law, but a guideline. Adding ornamentation was normal. Listen to the Zinman Beethoven set and you'll hear some ornamentation not in the original. Improvising was acceptable. Somewhere along the line it became unfashionable and condemned. Using the standard, accepted text is demanded by some.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I usually enjoy these "creative" performances. One good example is Kopatchinskaja's Beethoven Violin Concerto, where she makes little musical comments along the way, and they do add to the music.


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

mbhaub said:


> Back in those days it was common and even expected that performers would ad lib and add their own thoughts on a performance. Kind of like jazz in a way. The printed music wasn't the Law, but a guideline. Adding ornamentation was normal. Listen to the Zinman Beethoven set and you'll hear some ornamentation not in the original. Improvising was acceptable. Somewhere along the line it became unfashionable and condemned. Using the standard, accepted text is demanded by some.


And I am sure Mozart did improvise will all correct taste and artistry - but ashkenazy ornamentation just puts meaningless frills where there should be clarity in the melodic line for example.


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## SalieriIsInnocent (Feb 28, 2008)

Beethoven composed some cadenzas for Mozart's 20th Concerto, I've heard a few performances using them. Barenboim utilized them in this recording:





I've heard improvised cadenzas on HIP recordings of Mozart sonatas as well as Beethoven ones. It was a fairly common practice for a composer to allow the performer some freedom in places. A lot of performances will leave them out. I'm fine with them at times, but they do distract when you're not used to them.


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## Griomo (Jun 14, 2017)

APL said:


> […] Is there any version of sheet of notes that Ashkenazy might have used.?


I have not heard this performance, but judging from the 1:50 timing he plays an _Eingang_, coming anywhere from own improvisation or other's printed sheet (f.i. those by Badura-Skoda). Backer in the days when composers hitched around playing their own concertos conducting from the piano, these Eingänge also helped getting tutti into cue, own fingers still fast in action. Many of those typically scalar passages in Beethoven scores may be understood as petrified Eingänge, and nowadays people often frown away at such ×digression× from their comfortably simplified notion of what is Classical, all the same chirping prejudice about how classical players cannot improvise, actually meaning 'they should not'.

It happens of course that soloist/listener aestethics mismatch. Matter of taste and timing.


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