Mozart, Piano Concerto No 12

By the end of 1782, twenty-six-year-old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had set foot firmly in Vienna, ready to make a name for himself as an independent musician, after leaving the Salzburg court and his hated patron Colloredo in the middle of the previous year.

Disregarding the advice of his father Leopold, he had also married Constanze Weber, a somewhat sickly girl, six years his junior, who would bear him six children only two of whom would reach adulthood.

The production of piano concertos
So he was faced with the challenge of conquering Vienna, and at the same time supporting a family, ensuring his health and well-being. The solution to such a challenge came through a fruitful production of piano concertos, for which Mozart was the performer, conductor, and producer of the event in which he unveiled them.

Between the autumn of 1782 and 1786, he composed the non-negligible sum of fifteen piano concertos, an enormous production that began with concertos Nos. 11, 12, and 13, at the end of 1782, intended to be premiered in the 1783 "season".

In a letter to his father dated December 28, 1782, Mozart describes the character of these pieces thus:

"...they are a fair medium between the too easy and the too difficult; they are quite brilliant, pleasing to the ear, and of natural unfolding, without becoming trivial. From time to time, passages appear that only connoisseurs can appreciate, but these passages are written in such a way that even the less demanding can be satisfied, even if they do not know why."

Concerto No. 12, in A major, K 414
The second concerto of the above series, No. 12, is a light work in the sense that it is written for a small orchestra. Consequently, it could also be performed at a family evening by a keyboard and string quartet, thus extending Mozart's potential demand after its publication and thereby increasing his income. Constanze welcomed the idea.

Movements
Structured in the traditional way, fast-slow-fast movements, its parts are:

00       Allegro
11:03  Andante (The main theme is taken from an overture by Johann Christian Bach, Mozart's childhood friend and teacher).
19:35  Allegretto

The performance is by Russian pianist and conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy, in the role of soloist and conductor.