Piano Concerto No. 14 in E-Flat Major

For Mozart as both composer and performer, 1784 was an astonishingly productive year. In addition to works including the “Hunt” String Quartet (K458), the Quintet for piano and woodwind (K452), the C minor Piano Sonata (K457) and a masterly Violin Sonata for the visiting Italian virtuoso Regina Strinasacchi (No. 32, K454), he composed no fewer than six piano concertos, ostensibly to perform at concerts he promoted himself in Vienna. The Concerto in E-flat Major, K449 was the first of these and became the first work he entered in the handwritten catalogue of his works that he maintained thereafter until his death. Mozart completed the Concerto in February and performed it the following month, a week before it was played by its dedicatee Barbara Ployer, a favourite pupil of his. The work opens with a unison call to attention, before a characteristically Mozartian stream of melody pours forth, tossed playfully between piano and orchestra. The central “Andantino” is unruffled and consoling, while the finale offers hints of angular Bachian counterpoint among its playful athleticism.