I'm trying to compare a Baroque Harpsichord Concerto with a Classical Piano Concerto. But I'm just wondering in what aspects that the Baroque Concertos influenced the Classical Piano Concerto. I am mainly focusing on Bach and Mozart. Is there an influence from Bach's music to Mozart's Piano Concerto? Thanks!
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3In short, there is a clear line of influence from J. S. Bach to Mozart: J. S. bach taught his son J. C. Bach who mentored the very young Mozart, whose early concertos are very similar to J. C. Bach’s concertos (in terms of form). The big development during this time is of course the use of large form structures (Mozart writes in sonata form but you’d be hard-pressed to find such rigorous and regular structures in a baroque concerto).– 11684Dec 1, 2018 at 23:24
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often the baroque forms are based on suites, where the classical music use the sonatenhauptsatzform. In some regards the improvisational practice of classical piano concertos got lost in the academic education. You should also have a look at Robert Levine´s lectures on improvising Mozart...Bach and Mozart were improvisors– HiDuEiJun 23, 2019 at 0:17
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1 Answer
You could boil the difference down to one fundamental elements: baroque concertos were actually intended for multiple "soloists," so you could consider the keyboard music to be an orchestral part, of sorts. Classical concertos were more similar to what we think of today, which is an isolated soloist accompanied by instrumentalists.
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1Thanks for your answer. Just a clarification, though: what you say is true of the baroque Concerto Grosso, which tended to feature a small group of soloists (concertino) vs. the full orchestra, but the late baroque definitely had many, many examples of solo concertos. It's true that keyboard concertos in the baroque often tended to use multiple soloists, and the keyboard frequently served a double function in the continuo section and as a soloist. But that wasn't always true, even among Bach's works. Apr 13, 2020 at 15:19