LMP On Demand: Piano Explored – Mozart's Piano Concerto No 21

London Mozart Players' Piano Explored lunchtime concert series at St John’s Smith Square has become a firm favourite with concert-goers. In just one hour, virtuoso pianist Howard Shelley OBE gives a witty and insightful introduction to one or two famous and not-so-famous works for piano and orchestra, before performing them with LMP. And for 2021, these concerts are online!

March’s Piano Explored concert is dedicated to a real favourite of the classical repertoire. Mozart composed his twenty-first piano concerto in a hugely busy period of his life but the music is perfectly poised, and the concerto has the majesty and immensity of his greatest symphonies. The beautifully expressive slow movement, which in the 1960s experienced a burst of fame as the theme for art house film ‘Elvira Madigan’, verges on the operatic, with a quiet melody moving over a pulsating accompaniment. This lunch-hour concert also includes Howard Shelley’s enlightening insights into the piece, delivered before the LMP and the impeccably stylish Shelley perform this technically demanding and hugely popular masterpiece.

‘He is an artist of electric vitality and cultured exuberance’ Fanfare, USA