Maria Joao Pires panics in the concert hall when the orchestra starts playing Mozart's Piano Concerto K. 466 while she had worked on a different piano concerto. I think this is absurd... Since when are piano and orchestra concertos not prepared together with the orchestra? Did they not even do one rehearsal? Did she arrive from the other side of the world 10 minutes before the concert, sit at the piano, and realize she had prepared the wrong concerto? In any case, playing the 466 is the same; even if she had already studied it, it's certainly not something to improvise on the spot without having reviewed it for an occasion like this...
Can you believe that yesterday I was tagging you on Facebook regarding this very matter? Upon first listen, the piano part is not one of the simplest; at least, that is the impression I had at first glance.
And why should it have the same characteristics as the "prelude"; perhaps in terms of difficulty, he knew how to bring out the best. It is true that one cannot improvise, but if (let's assume that was the case) he had no trouble remembering it completely, it could be that he performed it without any hesitation.
From other places I have read that it was an open rehearsal. In any case, the 466 is not at all a "concertino"; the three movements are one worse than the next, there is a very long and difficult cadenza, often Beethoven's; I have played it and can say it is one of the most difficult, certainly not something that can be played after a year of not touching it, so this whole business seems very strange to me as well, unless he had played it with an orchestra very recently...
