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Mozart's fascination with the piano concerto parallels Europe's interest in the piano itself. In the composer's early years, pianos were still regarded as new inventions. Harpsichords, which had been the stars of the Baroque era, were as yet highly regarded. Gradually, though, the greater power and versatility of the piano gave it precedence over its predecessor. A growing demand arose for compositions suited to this new keyboard instrument, and a fine pianist (Mozart was acclaimed as one of the best) could earn a good living playing concerti for appreciative audiences, especially if one could do so in Vienna, where appetites for new piano concerti seemed insatiable. For this reason, Mozart abandoned his native Salzburg. He settled in the imperial capital in the summer of 1781. In the decade that remained of his life, he would produce seventeen piano concerti, many of which now number among the masterpieces of the repertoire.
The first concerti that Mozart composed following his move to Vienna are those known as numbers 11, 12 and 13. They were completed in the winter of 1782-83 in an inverted order, with the so-called Twelfth Concerto coming somewhat before the Eleventh. The alteration in numbering occurred when the three works were published together in 1785 as opus 4, numbers 1, 2 and 3. Of these works, Mozart observed to his father, "These concerti are a happy medium between what is too easy and too difficult; they are very brilliant, pleasing to the ear, and natural, without being vapid. There are also passages here and there from which connoisseurs alone can derive satisfaction; but these passages are written in such a way that the less discriminating cannot fail to be pleased, though without knowing why." The composer's words might remind some observers of his later opera The Magic Flute, in which the philosophical and the fairy tale find a harmonious home together. Even a decade prior to that landmark work, Mozart was seeking a way to please multiple levels of listeners.