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By the spring of 1786 Mozart’s popularity was beginning to decline. Audiences were finding Mozart’s music ‘over-composed’, unnecessarily rich in notes and perhaps too expressive. To our ears Mozart’s music appears relatively straightforward and simple on the surface, but there are always surprising depths which leave us astounded.

This Piano Concerto No.23 is a perfect example, as the first movement in no way prepares you for the profoundly expressive and incredibly moving second movement playing now. The darker side emerges full-fledged and the emotion is so magnified as to take us into the realms of heart-rending despair.

Apparently once, when Mozart was improvising in front of an audience he considered insufficiently attentive, he suddenly broke off from playing, executed a few cartwheels, dived under the table and abruptly left. When hearing a movement as priceless as this, it is almost unbelievable to imagine this happening.