Piano Concerto No. 21, K. 467

The strings begin a march in C major, piano, in short, separated notes. The woodwind reply, and fuller orchestral phrases follow. The piano does not play during this opening.

Mozart played this concerto at the Burgtheater in Vienna on 10 March 1785, in a concert for his own benefit. The advertisement also announced that he would improvise on a fortepiano fitted with a large pedal keyboard.

The piano enters during the woodwind passage and runs up to a fermata. It then holds a trill while the strings play the march theme again.

In the solo exposition the piano moves into G minor. Chromatic scales lead out of it to a flowing tune in G major. Neither the G minor passage nor this tune appears in the orchestral exposition.

Artur Schnabel, Malcolm Sargent and the London Symphony Orchestra recorded the concerto on 12 January 1937 in Abbey Road’s Studio 1, with Lawrance Collingwood producing. The same booking, which began on 9 January, also covered the F major Concerto, K. 459.

After the piano’s closing trill the orchestra takes over. Winds, brass and strings confirm G major, then the strings continue more quietly. The soloist rests, then returns with another new melody.

The development begins at bar 222 with a new phrase in the piano, lightly accompanied by strings. The soloist then plays rapid figures against held notes in the orchestra.

The strings play the opening march again in C major. The piano re-enters while other instruments are stating the first few notes of the march, so the entries overlap. The tune passes between the players before the soloist goes on to new material.

HMV issued the concerto in November 1937 on four discs, DB 3099–⁠3102, eight sides in all. The first movement took four sides, and the last of them carried Schnabel’s cadenza. The Andante and the finale took two each.

Writing to his father on 28 December 1782, Mozart described his earlier concertos as a middle way between too hard and too easy. They held passages for connoisseurs, and other listeners were also to be satisfied, “without knowing why”.

The orchestra stops on an unfinished cadence and Schnabel plays alone. The cadenza is his own composition. Mozart’s full score marks the place for it, and the orchestra re-enters after the soloist leads back.

The orchestra resumes the written close in C major. Its firm opening phrases gradually shrink to a quiet ending, recalling the restraint of the first string march.

Second violins and violas repeat soft triplets above plucked cellos and basses. The muted first violins enter with the melody in long phrases over this accompaniment.

The violin melody rises into wide leaps and accented dissonances, and the winds support the clashes. The dynamic stays soft. The triplet accompaniment continues beneath the changing chords.

At the solo entry the piano’s left hand takes over the repeated triplets and the right hand plays the melody. All the strings play pizzicato.

The Swedish film Elvira Madigan (1967) used this Andante, in a recording by Géza Anda, and the concerto took its nickname from the film. Schnabel’s performance, heard here, was made thirty years earlier.

Schnabel recorded this concerto on a Bechstein in Abbey Road’s Studio 1 on 12 January 1937, with Malcolm Sargent conducting the London Symphony Orchestra. The Andante took up two sides of the original HMV issue.

Winds and strings alternate with the piano, then the soloist resumes above the repeated accompaniment. The orchestral phrases become sharper as the middle passage goes on.

After a brief break in the repeated accompaniment, the piano plays the opening melody again in A♭ major, a key far from F. Plucked strings and left-hand triplets return beneath it.

This stream is Bob Varney’s transfer of the Angel LP COLH 67, issued in the series “Great Recordings of the Century”. The London Symphony Orchestra’s discography dates that reissue to November 1959, twenty-two years after the Abbey Road session.

The piano’s embellished line modulates back towards F major, with sustained woodwind notes beside it. The triplets continue through the final phrases and stop at the last cadence.

The strings introduce a quick C major refrain in two beats to the bar. Mozart breaks off the opening exchange with a pause for the piano, which plays a flourish and then takes up the tune.

The piano plays a connected phrase, marked legato, above held horn notes. Its runs extend beyond the short statements of the refrain. New ideas follow as the first episode modulates away from C major.

Between February 1784 and December 1786, Mozart wrote twelve piano concertos. Vienna’s audiences usually heard them with the composer himself at the keyboard. K. 467 was one of the new scores he brought to the platform in 1785.

After a pause the piano plays the refrain in C major. The orchestra then takes it up.

The middle episode breaks the refrain into smaller figures. Piano and woodwinds exchange them in quick alternation, and the piano extends them into longer runs. Each exchange begins with a few notes from the refrain.

The refrain returns in C major and leads into more elaborate piano writing. The strings continue the short phrases beneath the solo part. A cadenza follows later in the movement.

A short orchestral tutti stops at a fermata, and the piano plays alone. The cadenza delays the final cadence and gives Schnabel a longer solo passage after the quick exchanges of the rondo.

On the original discs the finale fills both sides of a single HMV record, DB 3102, matrices 2EA 4610 and 4611. This stream comes from a later LP transfer, so the movement plays without a break.

After the cadenza, piano and strings play the refrain again. Fuller orchestral replies and rising piano scales carry the closing passage towards C major, and trumpets and timpani return for the final chords.