This concerto, composed in 1777, was Mozart’s first fully mature piano concerto. In its size, its significant technical demands, and its depth of expression, it is alone among his early concertos.
It contains unprecedented experiments with the concerto form: the piano interjections before the orchestral introduction, the use of the piano during the orchestral close of the first movement, an impassioned C minor slow movement with an instrumental recitative, the “cantabile” minuet that interrupts the perpetual motion of the third movement “Presto”
Mozart also provided written-out cadenzas and embellishments for fermatas, improvisatory music that he normally left for the performer to improvise.
Pianist Mitsuko Uchida recorded many of Mozart’s concerti with conductor Jeffrey Tate, and here they are doing #9:
