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Violin Concerto No. 1 (Mozart)

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Violin Concerto in B♭ major
No. 1
by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
1773 miniature of Mozart
KeyB-flat major
CatalogueK. 207
Composed1773 (1773)?
Movements
  1. Allegro moderato
  2. Adagio
  3. Presto
Scoring
  • Violin
  • orchestra

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 1 in B♭ major, K. 207, once was supposed to have been composed in 1775 (when Mozart was 19), along with his other four violin concertos. However, analysis of handwriting and the manuscript paper on which the concerto was written suggest that the date of composition might have been 1773, specifically with a completion date of April 1773.[1] It exhibits the usual fast–slow–fast structure that was predominant for solo concertos of the late eighteenth century.

Daniel E. Freeman has recently brought to light new evidence that supports the dating of April 1773, when Mozart had just returned to Salzburg from Italy, where he maintained close contacts with his close friend Josef Mysliveček, one of the most prominent composers of violin concertos in Italy at the time.[2] The most striking connection between the first concerto of Mozart and the work of Mysliveček is the opening theme of Mozart's first movement, which appears to be quoted directly from Mysliveček’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in D major, a work that was certainly written earlier, since it appears for sale in the Breitkopf catalog of 1769. [3] The absence of a rondo finale in the original version of Mozart’s concerto is consistent with preferences throughout Europe in the early 1770s (by the time Mozart’s later concertos were written, rondo finales had started to become common). The formal scheme of the fast movements conforms precisely to a distinctive formal scheme that is standard in all of Mysliveček’s violin concertos. Passages for the soloist accompanied only by two violins in this Mozart concerto was a trait of Mysliveček’s violin concertos likely picked up from his contact with Giuseppe Tartini in Padua in the late 1760s.

I. Allegro moderato
II. Adagio
III. Presto

Movements are:

  1. Allegro moderato
  2. Adagio
  3. Presto
\relative c''' { \set Score.tempoHideNote = ##t \tempo "Allegro moderato" 4 = 120 \key bes \major <bes d,>4\f bes2 \grace c16( bes8) a16 g | g8( f) f2 \grace g16( f8) es16 d | d8( c) bes2( a4) | bes16(d) c(es) d(f) es(g) f4 r }

The concerto is full of intricate passage work with running sixteenth notes and characterized generally by high spirits. Its simpler, less developed style in comparison to Mozart's Violin Concertos Nos. 2-5 serves as another likely confirmation of its earlier composition. The composer's abilities had advanced markedly between 1773 and 1775. Multi-work recordings of Mozart's violin concertos often omit his first violin concerto, since it reveals a musical inspiration less compelling than in the others.

The Rondo in B♭, K. 269, for violin and orchestra, also is connected to this concerto. It was intended to replace the finale movement and was composed to fulfil the recommendation of Antonio Brunetti, a violinist in Salzburg at the time. It was obviously composed to "modernise" the concerto in light of the new trend for rondo finales in solo concertos during the mid-1770s.

Nonetheless, typically the concerto is performed with the original finale and the K. 269 Rondo remains a separate concert piece.

References

[edit]
  1. ^ The evidence for this is set forth in Alan Tyson, Mozart: Studies of the Autograph Scores (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987), 25.
  2. ^ See Daniel E. Freeman, “The Stylistic Legacy of Giuseppe Tartini’s Violin Concertos as Revealed in the Violin Concertos of Josef Mysliveček and Wolfgang Mozart,” in ‘’In Search of Perfect Harmony: Tartini’s Music and Music Theory in Local and European Contexts’’, edited by Nejc Sukljan (Berlin: Peter Lang, 2022), 309-27.
  3. ^ See Barry S. Brook, ed., ‘’The Breitkopf Thematic Catalogue: The Six Parts and Sixteen Supplements, 1762-1787’’ (New York: Dover, 1966), 354. The beginning of the Mysliveček concerto is also excerpted in Freeman, “The Stylistic Legacy of Giuseppe Tartini’s Violin Concertos,” 321, and incipits for all three of its movements are provided in Angela Evans and Robert Dearling, ‘’Josef Mysliveček (1737-1781): A Thematic Catalogue of His Instrumental and Orchestral Works” (Munich: Musikverlag Katzbichler, 1999), 116.
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