Piano Concerto No. 24 (Mozart)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart finished composing his Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor on the 24th of March 1786. This date marks three weeks after he completed his Piano Concerto No. 23 in A major during the winter of 1785, 1786. The work emerged as part of a set of three concertos written in quick succession alongside his comic opera The Marriage of Figaro. Both works received adjacent numbers, 491 and 492, in the Köchel catalogue. While the opera remained almost entirely in major keys, this concerto stood out as one of Mozart's few minor-key works. Robert D. Levin suggests these pieces served as an outlet for a darker aspect of Mozart's creativity at that time.
The premiere took place on either the 3rd or the 7th of April 1786 at the Burgtheater in Vienna. Mozart performed as the soloist while conducting the orchestra from the keyboard. In 1800, Mozart's widow Constanze sold the original score to publisher Johann Anton André of Offenbach am Main. The manuscript passed through several private hands throughout the nineteenth century before Sir George Donaldson donated it to the Royal College of Music in 1894. The College still houses the manuscript today. The original score contains no tempo markings, so the timing for each movement is known only from entries Mozart made into his personal catalogue.
Mozart scored the work for one flute, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani and strings. This represents the largest array of instruments for which he composed any of his concertos. It is one of only two piano concertos by Mozart scored for both oboes and clarinets. Robert D. Levin writes that the richness of wind sonority due to these instruments is the central timbral characteristic of the piece. He notes that time and again in all three movements the winds push the strings completely to the side. The solo instrument was marked cembalo, a term Mozart used generically to encompass the fortepiano rather than strictly denoting a harpsichord.
The first movement follows standard sonata form but features an orchestral exposition ninety-nine measures long. The orchestra opens the principal theme in unison with a dynamic marking of piano. The theme remains tonally ambiguous until its final cadence in the thirteenth measure. Within thirteen measures it utilizes all twelve notes of the chromatic scale. The solo exposition discards convention from the outset as the piano does not enter with the principal theme. Instead it presents an eighteen-measure passage before the orchestra carries the main theme. Charles Rosen argues this creates a double exposition requiring substantial elongation during composition.
Mozart did not write out the soloist's part in full for the premiere because he intended to perform the work himself. On many occasions in the score he notated only the outer parts of passages of scales or broken chords. This suggests he improvised much of the solo part when performing the work. The score also contains late additions including that of the second subject of the first movement's orchestral exposition. Friedrich Blume attributed occasional notation errors to Mozart having obviously written in great haste and under internal strain. He noted that the omission of the customary cadential trill in the first movement was likely deliberate.
Ludwig van Beethoven admired the concerto and it may have influenced his Piano Concerto No. 3, also in C minor. After hearing the work in a rehearsal, Beethoven reportedly remarked to a colleague that they would never be able to do anything like that. Johannes Brahms encouraged Clara Schumann to play it and wrote his own cadenza for the first movement. Brahms referred to the work as a masterpiece of art and full of inspired ideas. Richard Heuberger recorded this statement in Erinnerungen an Johannes Brahms published in Tutzing in 1971. Many later composers including Ferruccio Busoni and Alfred Schnittke have composed their own cadenzas for the piece.
Musicologist Arthur Hutchings declared the work taken as a whole to be Mozart's greatest piano concerto. Alfred Einstein stated that the second movement moves in regions of purest and most moving tranquility with transcendent simplicity of expression. Simon P. Keefe describes the No. 24 as a climactic and culminating work in Mozart's piano concerto oeuvre. Alexander Hyatt King calls it not only the most sublime of the whole series but one of the greatest pianoforte concertos ever composed. The verdict remains that no work greater exists as a concerto than this K. 491 because its parts form one stupendous whole.
Common questions
When did Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart finish composing his Piano Concerto No. 24?
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart finished composing his Piano Concerto No. 24 on the 24th of March 1786.
Where was the premiere performance of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 24 held?
The premiere took place at the Burgtheater in Vienna on either the 3rd or the 7th of April 1786.
What instruments does Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart score for in his Piano Concerto No. 24?
Mozart scored the work for one flute, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani and strings.
Who donated the original manuscript of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 24 to a public institution?
Sir George Donaldson donated the manuscript to the Royal College of Music in 1894.
Which famous composers wrote cadenzas for Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 24?
Johannes Brahms wrote a cadenza for the first movement and later composers including Ferruccio Busoni and Alfred Schnittke have composed their own cadenzas for the piece.