The Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K. 491, is a concerto by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart for keyboard (period fortepiano pictured) and orchestra. He composed it in the winter of 1785–86 and completed it on 24 March 1786. He played the solo part in the premiere in early April that year at the Burgtheater in Vienna. The work is one of only two minor-key piano concertos by Mozart, the other being No. 20 in D Minor. It features the largest array of instruments of any Mozart concerto: strings, woodwinds including oboes and clarinets, horns, trumpets and timpani. The concerto consists of three movements. The first, Allegro, is in sonata form and is longer than any opening movement of Mozart's earlier concertos. The second movement, Larghetto, features a strikingly simple principal theme, and the final Allegretto presents a theme followed by eight variations. The work is one of Mozart's most advanced compositions in the concerto genre. Early admirers included Ludwig van Beethoven and Johannes Brahms. The musicologist Arthur Hutchings considered it to be Mozart's greatest piano concerto. Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_Concerto_No._24_(Mozart)> _______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries: 1860: Rōnin samurai of the Mito Domain assassinated Japanese Chief Minister Ii Naosuke, upset with his role in the opening of Japan to foreign powers. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakuradamon_Incident_(1860)> 1882: German physician Robert Koch announced the discovery of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, a bacterium that causes tuberculosis. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuberculosis> 1934: The Tydings–McDuffie Act came into effect, which provided for self-government of the Philippines and for Filipino independence from the United States after a period of ten years. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tydings%E2%80%93McDuffie_Act> 1989: The tanker Exxon Valdez spilled 10.8 million US gallons (260,000 bbl; 41,000 m3) of oil into Prince William Sound, Alaska, causing one of the most devastating man-made maritime environmental disasters. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exxon_Valdez_oil_spill> 2008: The Bhutan Peace and Prosperity Party, led by Jigme Thinley, won 45 out of 47 seats in the National Assembly of Bhutan in the country's first-ever general election. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhutanese_National_Assembly_election,_2008> _____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day: rhematic: 1. Of or pertaining to a rheme. 2. (linguistics) Of a part of a sentence: providing new information regarding the current theme. 3. (Peircean semiotics) Of or pertaining to a sumisign (a sign that represents its object in respect of quality and so, in its signified interpretant, is represented as a character or mark). 4. (obsolete) Of or pertaining to word formation. 5. (obsolete, rare) In Coleridge's work: relating to the arrangement of words into sentences clearly. 6. (grammar, obsolete, rare) Having a verb for its base; derived from a verb. <https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/rhematic> ___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:   Fascist rebelliousness always occurs where fear of the truth turns a revolutionary emotion into illusions. In its pure form, fascism is the sum total of all irrational reactions of the average human character. To the narrow-minded sociologist who lacks the courage to recognize the enormous role played by the irrational in human history, the fascist race theory appears as nothing but an imperialistic interest or even a mere "prejudice." The violence and the ubiquity of these "race prejudices" show their origin from the irrational part of the human character. The race theory is not a creation of fascism. No: fascism is a creation of race hatred and its politically organized expression.   --Wilhelm Reich <https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Reich>