Mozart completed Piano Concerto No. 27 on January 5, 1791, during the last year of his life. It was his last piano concerto and his last public performance.
Overall, this concerto utilizes a basic musical palette, one purified and refined, elemental and skeletal, as well as monumental, and all at the same time.
Mozart composed the initial movement in sonata form; its development section has both originality and subtlety. The themes of the second and third movements take the style of what were then popular songs, almost certainly chosen to offer contrast and relief from the more grandiose Allegro first movement.
The second movement, Larghetto, has an apparent simplicity within a symmetrical structure, but that simplicity only results from the skill and subtlety with which Mozart composed. The serenity of this music is undeniable.
The principal theme of the rondo finale, Allegro, derives from a folk song from the Swabian region of southwestern Germany. Mozart used this theme again for the first of three songs he entered in his catalog nine days after this concerto. The folk song’s title is “Sehnsucht nach dem Frühling” (“Yearning for Spring”) and the first words are “Komm, lieber Mai…” (“Come, dear May, and make the trees go green again”).
Here is pianist Maria Joao Pires to play this jewel for you:
