The A-major concerto, one of Mozart’s most popular, is not only a powerfully emotional work—especially the second movement—but is also of historical interest.
One of three concertos Mozart was to perform in Vienna during the Lenten season of 1786, the concerto KV 488 was completed in March and was among the first of his works to make use of clarinets.
Preliminary sketches for this work exist, demonstrating that Mozart wasn’t always composing on the fly. In fact, he kept notebooks containing musical ideas to be used at a later time, works in progress, and even some brief sketches eventually abandoned altogether.
About 320 fragments and sketches have survived. Sketches for part of the first movement, an abandoned second movement in D major, and the finale, reveal that this work was already underway in 1784, two years before its completion. This evidence demonstrates that Mozart sometimes devoted great care to revising and polishing his compositions.
Here is pianist Helene Grimaud to play the second movement from this concerto for you:
