Mozart, Piano Concerto in D major, K.537 “Coronation Concert”, and Sonata in A minor, K.310, III. Presto (Mozartwoche 1999)

The Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg has been the orchestra of the city and Land of Salzburg since 1958 and regularly concertizes at the Salzburg Festival and the Mozartwoche. The principal conductor is the Dutch-born Hubert Soudant, who led the Nouvel Orchestre Philharmonique de France in Paris from 1981 to 1983 and the Utrecht Symphony Orchestra from 1983 to 1986. In addition to his activities in Salzburg, Soudant is also the principal conductor of the Orchestra and Opéra des Pays de Loire in Nantes and Angers, France. Gianluca Cascioli is the soloist in the Piano Concerto K. 537, the "Coronation Concerto." Mozart wrote this work, his penultimate piano concerto, in 1788, perhaps in an attempt to revive his now waning popularity in Vienna. It owes its name "Coronation" to the assumption that it was performed by Mozart in Frankfurt in 1790, during the festivities for the coronation of Leopold II as Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.