Mozart completed the piano concerto #27 in January of 1791, shortly before his thirty-fifth birthday. It was to be the last year of his life and his last piano concerto. He wrote it for himself to play at a concert organized by the clarinetist Joseph Beer.
Formerly, he had been able to perform subscription concerts entirely of his own music, but his popularity had declined in Vienna to the point where he played only this single work on another musician’s concert and was listed third of the three performers in the advertisement.
Haydn, who felt that Mozart was the greatest composer that he knew or had heard of, deplored the attitude of the Viennese public and the fact that Mozart was not more widely known. He was in England at the time of Mozart’s death, and he said: “I only regret that before his death he could not convince the English, who walk in darkness in this respect, of his greatness — a subject about which I have been sermonizing to them every single day . . .”
Well, the British public were deprived of a unique opportunity…
Here is pianist Emil Gilels to perform the Piano Concerto #27 by Mozart for you:
