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 [0:00] I. Allegro - Cadenza 10:58 [14:05] II. Larghetto [21:20] III. Theme and Variations. Allegretto “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