Piano Concerto C minor K. 491 by W. A. Mozart

This concerto was composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) in the winter of 1785–86 and finished on March 24th, 1786. Mozart’s Piano Concerto in C minor K.491 is one of his best-known works in the genre, not least because of the special character of its minor key – it is one of only two minor-keyed concertos by Mozart – and the dramatic contrast between the soloist and orchestra. It has the largest array of instruments among Mozart’s piano concertos and is scored for strings, woodwinds, horns, trumpets, and timpani. The original manuscript is a fascinating insight into the art of Mozart’s composition, e.g. he did not write out the soloist’s part in full because he intended to perform it himself. It is exceptional because it contains evidence that he later enlarged and revised the score, rather than simply writing it out in a single draft as he often did. On the one hand, this allows us to retrace his creative process, written in various colored inks, on the other hand, in some passages the definitive readings are almost illegible, especially in the piano part.