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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.
According to the date that the composer himself noted on the score, the Fifteenth Piano Concerto was completed March 15, 1784, the second of four concerti that he would write in a two month period. Mozart typically produced several piano concerti at the end of each winter. In 1785, he would write two such works in February and March, in 1786, two more. At first glance, the timing of such productivity might seem to be due to a burst of spring fever. However, the actual explanation has less to do with weather than with religion. These numerous concerti were all written during or just before Lent, the six weeks of reflection that precede Easter each year. In Vienna, at the time a very Catholic city, the dramatic theatres usually closed during Lent, depriving the Viennese of a favored source of entertainment. Lacking competition from theatres, concert attendance soared, and musicians capitalized on the demand by presenting even more concerts. Mozart's own letters, as well as contemporary accounts, attest that during Lent he frequently gave three or four concerts each week. As a pianist, he would want some new music to perform on these concerts, hence the series of concerti.
Of this concerto and its companion, the Sixteenth, completed only seven days later, the composer would observe in a letter to his father, "they are both concerti to make you sweat." Was he thinking of the physical strain of performance, or the mental strain of achieving perfection? Perhaps the latter, for even today, with the intervening examples of Prokofiev and Liszt as icons of technical impossibility, pianists still point to Mozart's music as being particularly difficult to play well. It is not, they insist, the notes themselves, rather that, in music so clearly structured, the slightest error stands out as a clear blemish. It is a view that Mozart himself might have supported, for in a letter to his father, written a few weeks after this concerto was composed, he recalled an encounter with another pianist, someone whom he described as "without a trace of taste or feeling...Otherwise he is the best fellow in the world." According to Mozart, the other pianist expressed astonishment at the ease with which Mozart played. "My God," the man supposedly said, "I work at it till I sweat and yet get no success, while you, my friend, simply play at it." Mozart's reply, as he explained to his father, was, "Yes, but I, too, had to work in order that I might be exempt from work now."