Mozart Piano Concerto No. 24

Imagine writing a concerto that prompted Beethoven to remark to a
friend: “we’ll never be able to write anything like that. 
Or a piece that prompted Brahms to call it: “a masterpiece of
art, full of inspiration and ideas.”  Or had scholars and
musicologists raving, saying things like: "not only the most
sublime of the whole series but also one of the greatest
pianoforte concertos ever composed" or "whatever value we put
upon any single movement from the Mozart concertos, we shall find
no work greater as a concerto than this K. 491, for Mozart never
wrote a work whose parts were so surely those of 'one stupendous
whole'."  I could go on and on, but the simple end to this
story is that Mozart’s C Minor Piano Concerto has been considered
one of the great achievements of humanity ever since it was
premiered on either April 3rd of April 7th of 1786, performed by
Mozart himself.  While we don’t know exactly how long it
took Mozart to complete this concerto, it could not have taken
more than a few months, and it came amidst him writing his 22nd
and 23rd piano concerti, both masterpieces in their own right,
and it was written just as Mozart was putting the finishing
touches on his comic magnum opus, The Marriage of Figaro. 
It’s almost a cliche at this point, but its one of those rare
cliche’s that really deserves to be repeated:  If
Mozart had written just one of those 4 pieces, his name would
have been etched in history. Instead he was working on all 4 at
the same time! Today, we’re going to be talking about the
astonishing harmonic language of the piece, it’s skeletal
manuscript, and how performers deal with the contradictions and
quite frankly, missing pieces of this concerto. Join us!