Piano Concerto in A major, K.488

One of two piano concertos written for the composer himself to perform in his Lenten concerts in Vienna in 1786 - just a few weeks before the opening of Le Nozze di Figaro at the Burgtheater - K.488 is on of the great masterpieces of understatement. In keeping with its modest scoring (two clarinets but no oboes, trumpets, or drums) it begins without ceremony and in conversational intimacy. It proceeds with evident respect for the sonata-form conventions, which survive unchallenged throughout the orchestral and solo expositions. And then, after half a bar of silence, Mozart does an extraordinary thing: he begins his development with a new and quite unprepared theme in E major on four-part strings.

This unexpected event liberates the rhythm, disorientates the piano, and sets in motion a spiral of modulations which twist towards E major again only, apparently, by chance. But once the tonality is in that dominant position, the piano holds it there and, by way of a cadenza, restores it to the basic A major. So the main themes of the exposition are recapitulated without having been developed, which means that the understated climax of the movement is the docile reappearance in A major of the once unsettling subject of the development. Appropriately, Mozart’s own cadenza (which, unusually, is written out in full in the manuscript score) also avoids the main themes of the exposition.

The Adagio is in F sharp minor, Mozart’s only movement in that key and a lovely example of the way he intensifies the poignancy by declining to capitalise on sentiment. Emotion is confined for its melodic expression to a conventional dance rhythm and contained within a simple da-capo construction with a middle section in the relative major. Whether the chastity of the comparatively sparse piano writing in the last solo entry should be preserved, in keeping with the generally modest personality of the work, or whether the soloist should embellish it (perhaps in the manner of a highly decorative manuscript copy of this movement, which Mozart didn’t write but which he kept among his papers) must be a matter of individual taste.

Whatever the answer, there is no shortage of keyboard invention in the rondo - a movement which, incidentally, is by no means as irresponsible in its melodic extravagance as it contrives to seem. The E major melody introduced by flute and bassoon in the first episode and the strong F sharp minor stand taken by the piano later not only offset the surrounding exuberance but also link the finale in instinctive unity with the first two movements.