MARBECKS COLLECTABLE: Mozart: Klavierkonzerte Nos. 9 & 17

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 9 in E♭ major, K. 271, known as the Jeunehomme or Jenamy concerto was written in Salzburg in 1777 when the composer was 21 years old.

Mozart completed the concerto in January 1777, nine months after his Piano Concerto No. 8 in C major and with few significant compositions in the intervening period. He composed the work for Victoire Jenamy, the daughter of Jean-Georges Noverre and a proficient pianist. Mozart performed the concerto at a private concert on 4 October 1777. Jenamy may have premiered the work earlier.

The Piano Concerto No. 17 in G major, KV. 453, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, was written in 1784.

The date of the premiere is uncertain. In one view, the work is said to have been premiered by Mozart's student Barbara Ployer on June 13, 1784, at a concert to which Mozart had invited Giovanni Paisiello to hear both her and his new compositions, including also his recently written Quintet in E flat for Piano and Winds. Afterwards, Ployer was joined by Mozart in a performance of the Sonata for Two Pianos, K. 448. Another possibility, advanced by Lorenz (2006, 314), is that Mozart did not wait over two months to premiere the work, but performed it in his concert with Regina Strinasacchi on 29 April 1784 at the Kärntnertortheater. As a general consensus for researchers, it can be said with relative certainty that the work premiered during the mid-to-late spring of 1784, following its completion.

The finale is a variation movement whose theme was sung by Mozart's starling.