Mozart composed a total of 28 solo keyboard concertos, most of them for his own use in subscription concerts in Vienna. Consequently, the timing of their composition was influenced by the artistic climate and the economic wellbeing of the city. In the short period between 1782 and 1786, with a booming economy, aristocratic families vied with one another to underwrite and sponsor concerts of the latest music in fashion. During those flush years, Mozart was in great demand both as a composer and a performer at the keyboard, composing 17 concertos, including this one in E-flat Major. “Concertos,” Mozart wrote his father, “are a happy medium between what is too hard and too easy...pleasing to the ear...without being vapid.” 

By the late 1780s, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was experiencing a severe economic decline, the result of internal nationalistic uprisings and a war with Turkey, a continual menace on its Southern frontier. Moreover, the revolutionary events in France terrified the Austrian Emperor, who rescinded his earlier liberal reforms and reintroduced repressive political measures. The resulting atmosphere led to a stifling of cultural life and a decline in patronage for public concerts. Consequently, Mozart composed only two piano concertos in the last five years of his life. 

The Concerto No. 22 was Mozart’s first concerto to include clarinets, which he substituted for the customary oboes. The clarinet achieved its initial popularity as part of the Viennese Harmonie, or wind band; although used occasionally, it did not become a regular member of the symphonic orchestra until Beethoven’s time. Mozart, however, was partial to the instrument and wrote a concerto, a trio and a quintet featuring it. He also gave the two clarinets a prominent role in this concerto.

 Mozart finished the Concerto on December 16, 1785 and in his typical last-minute fashion, and probably premiered it the same day. As he reported to his father, the Andante engendering such applause that he had to repeat it. 

The first movement of a typical Classical concerto begins with a so-called double exposition, a rollout of the principal themes in the orchestra, followed by a repeat by the soloist – in the best examples usually with some new thematic material. Mozart seldom followed the script. In this concerto, the orchestra’s exposition consists of a series of melodies, opening with a fanfare and each theme repeated. By the time the piano enters, Mozart is clearly ready to go on with new material, although punctuated by the fanfare. 

The Andante that so impressed its first audience is one of Mozart’s few central concerto movements in a minor key; it seems to expand on the dark moments of the preceding movement. Although it is a set of variations, it not the kind Mozart’s audience would have expected, a two-part theme with internal repeats. Instead, there is a flow of sighs, a series of increasingly hysterical leaps, pregnant pauses and general sadness, relieved by two majormode interludes featuring new music by the winds. Mozart gives every instrument an opportunity to express itself, dealing out the variations and interludes to different combinations of strings, winds and, of course, the soloist. 

The Finale falls into the popular category of the musical hunting scene – a genre dating from the fourteenth century. The form is a rondo, in which the soloist introduces the galloping hunt refrain. Naturally, the horns play a significant role in this movement. Exploiting the hunt metaphor, Mozart frequently has the soloist, winds and strings chase each other around with the themes. The surprise here is that Mozart changes pace in the middle of the movement, just as the hunt is at its most frenetic, with another Andante (this one cantabile) featuring the clarinets and followed by the soloist. The tempo picks up, however, in time for a cadenza that Mozart would have improvised but of which he left no written trace.