Mozart Piano Concerto No 21 in C

Natasha Loges chooses her favourite recording of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major, K. 467 ('Elvira Madigan'). Perhaps the only piece of music to be named after a Swedish slack line dancer, Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21 gained its soubriquet after its remarkable slow movement was used as part of the soundtrack to the 1967 film Elvira Madigan. But circus acts or no, this concerto from 1785 is Mozart at the absolute height of his powers, the foremost pianist-composer of his day, breaking new ground with a series of concertos whose musical depth, virtuosity, inventiveness, woodwind writing and symphonic scale were all unprecedented. There are literally hundreds of recordings of this great work, many made by the giants of 20th- and 21st-century piano-playing on modern pianos. But intriguingly, there is a much smaller, if growing number made by musicians who use instruments of the period, allowing us to hear the extraordinary range of colours and textures conjured up by Mozart and which he himself would have heard.