Mozart’s Piano Concerto no 21, K 467 (1785)

by richibi

to my astonishment, not to mention my embarrassment,
upon learning just now, with this video, that the andante
to Mozart’s Piano Concerto no 21, K. 467, is not an adagio, 
as I’d been informing anyone I’d been trying to enlighten
about that tempo, breaking into, no, gently acceding to,
ever, the delicacy of the bucolic music in a voice that
had already often rendered the tune’s lyrical, incandescent, 
curves to the best of my fervent ability, I had to cede
years and years of my false assumption to the cold
irreversible judgment of black fact, I was wrong, I had
been wrong, am wrong, March 13, 2012
 
it doesn’t happen often, therefore the date
 
meanwhile beware of my pronouncements, where possible,
where pertinent, check your facts 
 
though that andante really feels like an adagio, don’t you
think
 
 
this middle movement had been the theme to a celebrated
movie when I was young – a Swedish movie, “Elvira Madigan“,
about a tragic couple who hadn’t survived the rigours of love,
a true and compelling story – and had become known through
this film, thereby introducing Mozart culturally to an entire
generation nurtured on movies
 
the andante is now probably again recognized as primarily
a work of Mozart’s, I’ll wager because of the film still now
his most famous, the film itself, “Elvira Madigan“, not having
had the shelf life of essential art, having become a historical,
though circumstantial merely, curiosity     
 
 
you won’t hear the fury of Brahms or Beethoven in
Mozart, he is of an another, earlier era, of courtesy and
controlled emotions, there is tenderness of course, but
never overt imperiousness or passion, just courtly music,
razzle dazzle and panache, that has lasted unscathed,
not at all blemished nevertheless for already 250 years  
 
 
Richard