Getting reacquainted with Mozart
A cadence is a three-chord sequence wrapping up a section in a musical work — usually a 6-4 chord, followed by a dominant seventh, and ending with a return to the tonic, which gives it the sense of closure. The cadenza in a concerto is an often (but not always) improvised passage or detour inserted by the performer between the six-four and the dominant seventh chords of a cadence, based on themes from the movement. I have written cadenzas for all the Mozart concertos that I played, unless Mozart himself provided one. In this entry, I describe some of the many things I discovered about the music I was playing by writing these cadenzas.