Composed 1785: 29 minutes

In the 1780s, Vienna was the musical capital of Europe. From his elegant apartment in the Domgasse, Mozart immersed himself in the social and artistic life of his adopted city. For several years, he aligned perfectly with public taste and moved effortlessly through fashionable circles. His name quickly spread, and his success was especially notable among the noble families who kept seasonal residences in the Austro-Hungarian capital. In 1782, he began composing a remarkable sequence of 17 piano concertos, bringing to the genre both symphonic weight and operatic drama. 

Completed on March 9, 1785, the C major Concerto was written in just 27 days during a period of intense activity during which Mozart gave a dozen concerts, taught students, and hosted a quartet gathering in which he and his father Leopold led a play-through of three of Mozart’s recently completed ‘Haydn’ Quartets, in the presence of Haydn. Leopold Mozart then heard his son perform the première of the C major Concerto, K. 467. We know his reaction to the new piece because a week later, Leopold wrote to his daughter Nannerl, March 16, 1785, saying: “The concertos which your brother performs are all difficult, and the one in C major, which I heard, is incredibly difficult.”

The energy of this moment in Mozart’s life seems to pour into the first movement of K. 467. While the orchestral exposition draws almost entirely from the opening march-like figure, the piano, once introduced by oboe, bassoon, and flute, launches a cascade of at least six themes in swift succession, all woven into the broader symphonic argument.

The slow movement is among Mozart’s most famous and expressive—an aria without words, deeply lyrical and introspective. [Swedish director Bo Widerberg thought so too when he built his 1967 romantic film Elvira Madigan around this movement.] Pulsing muted strings, chromatic shading, and touches of the minor key heighten the poignancy of what scholar Alfred Einstein called “an ideal aria, freed from all the limitations of the human voice.” Another biographer and critic, Arthur Hutchings, compared its spirit to “an operatic character with a human soul.” The final movement, a rondo, shifts into the lively world of opera buffa, with the piano delivering much of the humor and sparkling repartee of an operatic finale. Taken as a whole, this mature concerto is a brilliant showcase of Mozart’s artistry as both composer and performer.