Piano Concerto in C major K.415 (1782-3)

The C major Concerto - which is thought to be the first of the three to be written - is quite different from its companions. While it too observes what Mozart described to his father as “the happy medium between what is too easy and too difficult,” it seems to be written more for external effect than the other two. The original version was scored for strings with oboes, bassoons and horns but a later revision added trumpets and timpani, which is a realistic acknowledgement of the ceremonious nature of the march-like, contrapuntally flamboyant opening section. The material best suited to chamber treatment is the more expressive second subject which, however, the piano keeps to itself - perhaps to keep it fresh for the cadenza, where it makes a poetic entry after an uncharacteristically unsubtle beginning with an exchange of bare octaves between the two hands.

It is an indication of Mozart’s thinking in this work that he at one time considered setting the slow movement in C minor but, after drafting 17 bars, changed his mind. From at least one point of view, it was a wise move: faced with a serious-minded Adagio in C minor, the Emperor, who was present at the first two perfomances, might not have been as delighted as Mozart reported he was. The present Andante in F major, which lacks nothing in melodic charm, loses little in the absence of wind instruments except perhaps on the second statement of the main theme, just before the first entry of the piano.

If there had been a slow movement in C minor there might not have been an Adagio episode in that key in the closing Allegro, where it contrasts so effectively with the witty C major rondo theme. The recall of the Adagio epsidode, with a still more elaborate right-hand line poised over pizzicato arpeggios, couldn’t sound better than it does with solo strings.