Lugansky - Mozart Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K. 491 (1786)
Nikolai Lugansky, soloist
Alexander Vedernikov conducting Russian National Youth Symphony Orchestra, 2020
From Moscow Philharmonic Society

I. Allegro (C minor)
[0:00] Orchestral Expos.
[2:20] Solo Expos.
[6:23] Dev.
[8:09] Recap.
[10:57] Cadenza
[13:08] Coda

[14:10] II. Larghetto (E♭ major)

III. Theme and Variation. Allegretto (C minor)
[21:22] Theme
[22:15] Var. 1
[23:02] Var. 2
[23:50] Var. 3
[24:43] Var. 4 (A♭ major)
[25:35] Var. 5 (C minor)
[26:41] Var. 6 (C major)
[27:46] Var. 7 + brief cadenza
[28:30] Var. 8 + coda


"Even when writing a work in a minor key, composers in the Classical period typically ended a piece happily bathed in the reassuring comfort of the major, as indeed Mozart did in the otherwise stormy Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K. 466. In his Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K. 491, there is no such compromise; perhaps that is why this work so entranced Beethoven whose Piano Concerto No. 3, also in C minor, conveys a similar degree of anxiety and drama. If anything, Mozart’s primary theme in the opening movement is even more troubling than Beethoven’s, the result of K. 491’s chromaticism and oddly discomfiting 3/4-time meter. With an orchestral tapestry rich in wind timbres (oboes and clarinets), Mozart’s C-minor Piano Concerto is his darkest orchestral work. Only in his G-minor String Quintet, K. 516, does he so readily plumb such depths of feeling — and even there he ends the finale with a sudden and resolute shift into sunny G major!…“

- Steven Lowe, Seattle Symphony Orchestra