Mozart’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in B-Flat Major, K. 450: A Performance and Formal Analysis

Authors

Yihao Zhou, Macalester CollegeFollow

Document Type

Honors Project - Open Access

Comments

This thesis serves as a part of my Honors Project in the Music Department of Macalester College, which would not have been possible without the guidance and support from numerous people. Foremost are my piano teacher and advisor, Professor Mark Mazullo, and my coach and collaborator on the performance aspect, Lauri Sager Wright. Likewise, I would like to thank my other honors committee members, Professor David Grayson and Professor Mark Mandarano. I am also indebted to the rest of the faculty and staff of the Music Department for their knowledge and encouragement. Finally, I want to thank my family and friends, especially my mother for putting up with my constantly rambling on about this thesis over the phone.


Abstract

An examination of the formal designs of the three movements that comprise Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in B-Flat Major, K. 450, this thesis, along with a performance of the work (April 16, 2016), completes my Honors Project in the Macalester College Music Department. Drawing connections with standard musical forms that had been developed by the late eighteenth century, the formal analysis of K. 450, through a hermeneutic approach, offers a way of understanding the formal aspects of the three concerto movements. Particularly, it reveals that this concerto simultaneously presents the distinction of an individual in the societal context and the emergence of individual consciousness within a collective structure, two of the most enduring ideologies of the Enlightenment. Manifested in the musical sense, these two concepts further provide the concerto with formal stability.

Recommended Citation

Zhou, Yihao, "Mozart’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in B-Flat Major, K. 450: A Performance and Formal Analysis" (2016). Music Honors Projects. 15.
https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/musi_honors/15