Each Friday we select a track from a Naxos Music Group album released twenty years ago to provide the accompaniment for five minutes of your downtime.
This week’s pick from the Oehms Classics label (OC588) spotlights a piano concerto by Leopold Koželuch, born in Velvary, north-west of Prague in 1747, an esteemed contemporary of Mozart, and in some circles considered the finer composer. By 1781 he was regarded so highly that the Archbishop of Salzburg offered him Mozart’s former post as court organist. He declined, later stating to a friend that “the Archbishop’s conduct toward Mozart deterred me more than anything; for if he could let such a man as that leave him, what treatment should I have been likely to meet with?” Food for thought as we listen to the rondo finale of Koželuch’s Fifth Piano Concerto.
OC588 – III. Rondeau: Poco presto