Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Born: January 27, 1756, in Salzburg, Austria
Died: December 5, 1791, in Vienna, Austria

Sinfonia concertante in E-flat Major for Violin, Viola and Orchestra, K. 364

• Composed:  summer or early autumn 1779
  
• Premiere: unknown
  
• CSO Notable Performances:
  • First: March 1907, Frank Van der Stucken conducting, Alexander Petschnikoff and Lili Petschnikoff, soloists. 
  • Most Recent: November 2011, Robert Abbado conducting, Timothy Lees, violin; Christian Colberg, viola
• Instrumentation: solo violin and viola, 2 oboes, 2 horns, strings
• Duration: approx. 30 minutes

In March 1772, a few months before Mozart left on his Lucio Silla trip, he and his father got a new boss in Salzburg: Count Colloredo had been elected Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg. He was an unpopular choice (it had taken 13 ballots for him to win), and the locals never embraced him. As the Count’s relationship with the Mozarts deteriorated, the composer’s tours of the 1770s took on ever greater urgency, with Mozart hoping that they might lead to job offers elsewhere. In March 1778, he and his mother left for Paris, spending time at various courts along the way. She died there in July, leaving Mozart to fend for himself for the first time in his life. He wended his way back to Salzburg, arriving in January 1779 with connections forged but no appointment secured.

While in Paris, he had much exposure to symphonies concertantes, concerto-like works that spotlighted multiple instruments. The Parisians were passionate about the genre, and the fad spread from there to overtake Europe, with composers sometimes selecting unlikely combinations of soloists. (Consider Johann Georg Backofen’s Symphonie concertante for Harp, Basset Horn and Cello plus Orchestra, or, using the Italian form of the name, Leopold Koželuch’s Sinfonia concertante for Mandolin, Trumpet, Double Bass and Piano with Orchestra.) Mozart wasted no time getting into the game and, during this tour and shortly thereafter, embarked on several such pieces — mostly lost or left unfinished. The most beloved is the work played here, the Sinfonia concertante in E-flat Major for Violin and Viola, with the viola tuned in scordatura for increased brilliance, its part notated in D as opposed to the violin’s in E-flat, but nonetheless sounding in the same key.

The work’s genesis is not mentioned in any letters or other contemporaneous documents. Of the manuscript, only drafts of the cadenzas and of the last nine measures of the first movement survive; these help confirm that the first published edition (1802) was prepared accurately. The cadenzas for this piece are the only authentic cadenzas we have for any of Mozart’s string concertos, making them valuable beyond the role they play in the piece itself. This work towers above almost all other compositions Mozart produced around that time, and it can be reckoned among his incontestable masterpieces.

—James M. Keller