When Mozart, the former child prodigy, found himself still stuck at home in Salzburg in his early twenties, he took the leap of moving to Vienna in 1781 to start a freelance career. One of his best income streams during those first years in Vienna was his series of self-produced concerts, like the one at the Burg theater in 1785. That program featured the debut of the piano concerto he had completed just the night before, one of 15 (out of a lifetime total of 27) composed between 1782 and 1786, his peak performing years. The opening tutti of Piano Concerto No. 21 in C establishes the concerto’s majestic and expansive tone with a marching motive in a broad tempo. The first movement has its darker moments as well, like when the piano veers into the key of G minor. The Andante — familiar to movie buffs from its prominent use in the 1967 Swedish film Elvira Madigan — plays like an operatic aria for the piano. After music of such breadth and high emotion, the finale provides a charming and uncomplicated affirmation in C major, with ample passagework that must have delighted those patrons who had paid to see Vienna’s primo virtuoso.

Aaron Grad ©2019