Numbering of Symphonies, Concertoes

[3db]

Can anyone shed some light on the numbering behind Symphonies and concerrtoes, aprticularily Mozart's Piano COncertoes.


Piano concerto "Elvira Madigan", no. 21 in C major, K.467 . What is this K designation and how does it correlate to the Symphony/Cincertoe number?

 

[HexOmega]

I hate referencing Wikipedia but these two articles should answer your question:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opus_number

This answers your question re: "K" number

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Ritter_von_Köchel

 

[jostenmeat]

Yes 3db, it's just a cataloging system, but the important part is that it happens to be the cataloging system that the whole world has accepted and used. Yes, sure, there aren't a million symphonies of his, nor a million concerti, but it would be strange/wrong to only catalog his other works, and not his symphonies and concerti, just for example. Seeing that he was writing operas starting at age 5 or whatever, I'm sure that the output has been more than prolific.

You can read more about perhaps the most famous of all cataloging systems, and that is the BWV for Bach. The key to this system is grouping by genre, and not chronology.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis

 

[TLS Guy]

Can anyone shed some light on the numbering behind Symphonies and concerrtoes, aprticularily Mozart's Piano COncertoes.


Piano concerto "Elvira Madigan", no. 21 in C major, K.467 . What is this K designation and how does it correlate to the Symphony/Cincertoe number?

You have asked a difficult question.

The numbering should be in the order written. The symphonies are numbered from 1 through the last and the piano concertos and the string quartets etc. Each type of work starts from zero.

However the order of the total works written is the Opus number.

Now everything is fine as long as the composer left a detailed record. Often this is not the case. So the ordering becomes what the first musicologist who made the research his life's work says it is. In the case of Mozart it is Ludwig Kochel, hence the K numbering. H. Robbins Landon numbered and cataloged Haydn's works, and Ralph Kirkpatrick Scarlatti's. There are numerous other examples.

Dvorak was particularly lax in his numbering. His symphony in D minor is a classic case. It has been established that this symphony was the seventh he wrote. However he put number six on the score. It was his second symphony to be published, and his publisher called it symphony No.2. It was known as number 2 for many years, and older recordings generally call it No.2. However it is now almost always called No. 7. Are you confused now?