Piano Concerto No. 23 in A major, K.488

The concerto opens without any grand fanfare: the orchestra quietly lays out two gentle themes before the piano enters, elaborating and eventually taking charge with its own new ideas. Listen for the interplay between piano and orchestra as they trade and blend these themes, and for the light touch of the woodwinds, especially clarinets, which give this concerto a warmer, softer color than concertos scored with oboes.

The second movement, marked Adagio, is one of Mozart's most personal utterances. It is in a minor key, unusual for him, and opens with the piano alone playing a slow, aching melody over a rocking accompaniment. The mood is intimate rather than tragic, more like a quiet sigh than a lament, and the woodwinds answer the piano with tender phrases of their own.

The finale bursts in without pause, a fast rondo in which a bright, dancing main tune keeps returning between contrasting episodes. Mozart packs in quick exchanges between soloist and orchestra, sudden turns to minor-key shadows, and a joyful, headlong energy that carries the piece to its close. The whole concerto lasts about half an hour and moves from serene opening, to reflective heart, to high-spirited finish.

Mozart composed this concerto in Vienna in the spring of 1786, entering it into his personal catalog on March 2 of that year, in the midst of an extraordinarily productive period that also produced The Marriage of Figaro. He wrote it for his own use as a performer, likely premiering it himself at one of the subscription concerts he organized for Viennese audiences eager to hear him at the keyboard. The concerto was not published during his lifetime, circulating instead among patrons and fellow musicians who prized it highly. It has since become one of his most frequently performed piano concertos, admired for the intimacy of its slow movement and the warmth of its orchestration, which favors clarinets over the oboes Mozart used in most of his other works in this genre.