- Mozart completed this concerto in Vienna on March 24, 1786.1
- It is likely that Mozart performed this concerto on April 7, 1786, at the last concert he gave at Vienna’s Burgtheater. At the time he was transitioning to fewer piano performance appearances because he was achieving success with his operas and with the sale of his publications.2
- It has been conjectured that Mozart cut back his appearances as a piano virtuoso at this time because of pain in his hands.3
- As a child Mozart frequently suffered from rheumatic fever, which causes arthritis.
- Contemporary accounts claim that Mozart’s wife had to cut his meat for him at dinner.
- Karl van Beethoven wrote in Ludwig van Beethoven’s conversation book, “Mozart’s fingers were so bent from constant playing that he couldn’t even cut his meat.” On the other hand, another contemporary claimed Mozart avoided cutting his food because he was afraid of cutting his fingers.
Sources
- Cliff Eisen, and Stanley Sadie, “Mozart, (Johann Chrysostom) Wolfgang Amadeus,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed November 19, 2019, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-6002278233.
- Ibid.
- Maynard Solomon, Mozart: A Life (New York: Harper Collins, 1995), 301-302.
Cut IDs
19835