The stylistic significance of the first movement of Mozart's piano concerto no. 24 in minor, K. 491: A dialogic apotheosis

Abstract

Although Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 24 in Minor, K. 491 is widely regarded as his crowning achievement in the genre, its precise status among his concertos has not been explored in detail. In this article I focus on the first movement, using one of its most remarkable stylistic features, the intense dialogue between the piano and the orchestra, to explain its pivotal position in Mozart's oeuvre. Drawing on Heinrich Christoph Koch's explanation of “passionate dialogue” in the late 18th‐century concerto and Antoine Reicha's detailed codification of types of dialogue in the Traité de mélodie, I compare dialogic organization in the opening movement of K. 491 to similar organizations in corresponding movements of Mozart's preceding Viennese piano concertos (K. 413–488). While there are precedents in earlier concertos for both the distinctive dialogic processes of K. 491/i (the striking confrontation between the piano and the orchestra in the development section, for example) and for its general pattern of relational development (intimate dialogue in the solo exposition and recapitulation sections contrasting with less tightly‐knit exchange in the development), this movement goes further than its predecessors both in its symmetrical arrangements of dialogue and in its tour de force of dialogic ingenuity in the recapitulation. By interpreting Mozart's departure from his standard pattern of relational development in the final three concertos (K. 503,537 and 595) as an attempt, after the remarkable sophistication of K. 491/i, at dialogic renewal, I reinforce K. 491's position as a climactic work in Mozart's concerto cycle.