Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos. 20 & 23

Featuring

Khatia Buniatishvili
Academy of St Martin in the Fields
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

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Composition History

Mozart premiered his Piano Concerto in D minor K 466 on February 11, 1785, in a packed ballroom, having completed it only the previous day, leaving barely enough time for a run-through with the orchestra.

Composer Biography

Mozart added his Piano Sonata No. 16 in C major K 545, subtitled 'Sonata facile', to his catalogue on June 26, 1788, intending it as a teaching piece for beginners to introduce them to composition and keyboard playing.

Compositional Technique

The Adagio at the heart of Mozart's Piano Concerto in A major K 488 is based on a slow, somnambulistic siciliana rhythm in the rare key of F-sharp minor, which a contemporary, Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart, described as a 'dark' key that 'pines' for the tranquility of A major.

Composer's Artistic Vision

According to Ferruccio Busoni, a composer and pianist, Mozart's music paradoxically embraces its opposite, disposing of light and shadow without pain or unclear darkness, and always having a witticism ready even in tragic situations.

Compositional Technique

Mozart's Piano Concerto in D minor K 466 was his first concerto in a minor key and is linked to the mythological worlds of Don Giovanni and the unfinished Requiem through its tonality, expressivity, and nocturnal coloring.

Composition History

Mozart began his Piano Concerto in A major K 488 in 1784 but broke off in the middle of the first movement, leaving the manuscript untouched for almost two years before resuming work.