10.04.2025

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Improvised and also composed solo cadenzas, normally occurring towards the end of a bravura aria or an instrumental concerto movement, have existed since the late 16th century. They provide the performer with an opportunity for self-presentation in the form of a free style of playing or singing, based on themes and motifs from previous sections of the movement. Solo cadenzas are for the most part introduced by a six-four chord held by the orchestra; the soloist then begins a protracting interpolation in free style, subsequently culminating on the dominant chord, usually with a trill.Whereas originally composers left solo cadenzas to be freely improvised, from the middle of the 19th century onwards they were frequently specifically written out. The increasing abuse of cadenzas as a mere display of free virtuosity, ignoring the style and impetus of the composition, played a substantial factor in this development. Thus Beethoven gives the soloist no opportunity whatsoever for free improvisation in his 5th piano concerto in which the cadenza becomes an integral, obligatory component of the complete work. In this unique series Schott Music International presents cadenzas created for well-known instrumental concertos from the Classical and Romantic periods by major composers and soloists of our time.
 
Traditionally, cadenzas were improvised during a concert by the performer who was often the composer of the work himself. As such, we have the cadenza scores for many concertos of 18th and early 19thcenturies, those of  Mozart and Beethoven being the most prominent ones. Later, Schumann and Grieg wrote cadenzas that became well known virtuoso solo passages. Saint-Säens even opened one of his concertos, the 2nd, with a long solo passage. Three of the most important concertos of Mozart, however, have no cadenza scores by the composer. Therefore, when I performed these works from my childhood days onward, I played cadenzas by other pianists. I remember playing the cadenzas written by Robert Casadesus for the concerto KV 467 when I played this work at a concert in 1953 at the age of twelve. I do not recollect which cadenza I played in the concerto KV 482, which I performed for the first time in 1963 in Manchester with the Hallé Orchestra conducted by Nadia Boulanger. As Mlle Boulanger did not like cadenzas, she may not have permitted me to play one. When it could not be avoided to play the cadenza, as in my performances of the Schumann Concerto in 1958 with orchestras under her baton, Mlle Boulanger continued to conduct even while I played solo piano, i.e., the cadenza!
 
I started making recordings of the Mozart concertos in 2015. When it came to KV 503 three years later, after reflection, I decided to write and play my own cadenzas for this and the other concertos that did not have one by Mozart himself. Since, in childhood I had improvised in the style of Mozart (or what I then thought was his style), writing cadenzas for his concertos seemed natural to me. By chance the next two in the list of the recordings were KV 467 and KV 482 both without cadenzas by Mozart. Thus, came into being the scores of the cadenzas for the three concertos in this edition. In writing them, I kept in mind Paul Badura Skoda’s advice that a cadenza should be simple. Stylistic continuity and integrity with the concerto and the specific movement concerned were the other priorities I have tried to keep in my writing. I must add that there could be inspiration in these from the cadenzas I played in my childhood. When I played cadenzas, even those by Mozart himself, I often instinctively improvised certain parts of the score. I remember this happened also when I played Mozart’s Concerto for two pianos in E flat major KV 365 with Wilhelm Kempff in Paris in Théâtre des Champs-Élysées at the age of eleven. During the cadenza, we deviated from Mozart’s score and improvised together. This was not at all planned. Kempff’s daughter Irene reminded me of this while we were visiting a photo exhibition about her father in Potsdam in 2009. The three concertos KV 467, KV 482, KV 503 were recorded at my concerts in London and Worthing in England. There, I again improvised parts of the cadenzas. Therefore, the scores here combine the manuscripts of my written cadenzas with the improvised parts at the concerts. Here I would like to thank my colleague Dr. Aydın Karlıbel for the help he has given in putting my manuscripts of the cadenzas into printed form, also referring in this work to the concert performances of these when I sometimes improvised and deviated from the written scores.
 
İdil Biret  
Istanbul, November 2023 


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