Composed 1775: 29 minutes

Throughout his early years, Mozart was celebrated above all as a keyboard prodigy, eclipsing his accomplishments on violin and viola. The image stuck—helped by the fact that he became the first celebrated performer on the early fortepiano. But Mozart’s credentials as a string player remained strong. At 21, he could write to his father with confidence: “I played as though I were the finest fiddler in all Europe.” That moment followed a chamber music gathering in Munich, where his violin playing caught listeners by surprise. Leopold Mozart, a renowned authority on violin technique, replied: “You yourself do not know how well you play the violin.” A month later, on October 19, 1777, Mozart played two violin concertos—including K. 218, written just before the one on tonight’s program—in Augsburg. “In the evening at supper, I played my concerto, which went like oil. Everyone praised my beautiful, pure tone,” he proudly reported. Mozart continued to perform on both violin and viola throughout his life. His five violin concertos, more than thirty violin sonatas, the Concertone for two violins and orchestra, and the Sinfonia concertante for violin and viola all speak to the significant role of string instruments in his musical development.

All five violin concertos date from his late teens, between 1773 and 1775, while Mozart served as concertmaster to the Salzburg court orchestra. He completed the fifth and final one—K. 219 in A major—on December 20, 1775, just weeks before his twentieth birthday. Scored for the modest ensemble of oboes, horns, and strings that was the norm in Salzburg, the concerto opens with bustling energy, full of musical ideas. But when the soloist enters, Mozart turns expectations on their head: instead of taking up the orchestral material, the violin introduces a gentle six-bar adagio. It’s followed by an entirely new solo melody from the piano, layered over the original orchestral theme—now repurposed as accompaniment. This witty, surprising opening is altogether representative of what’s in store.

The second movement is Mozart’s most ambitious slow movement to date. Its spacious, unhurried opening sets the tone for an expansive lyrical arc. The violin soars serenely and seamlessly above the orchestra, interacting only once with the orchestral violins in a brief canonic echo of the opening material. The finale begins with an elegant minuet—but this calm is soon shattered by the so-called ‘Turkish’ episode that gives the concerto its traditional nickname. Mozart’s ‘Turkish’ music draws not on Turkish sources but on Hungarian-Roma styles, infused with a hint of the East. He contrasts the polished refinement of the courtly minuet with a burst of raw, exotic color from somewhere East of the ordered world of the Salzburg court. Now there are jagged, minor-key melodies, buzzing drones, dark chromatic lines, biting grace notes, and abrupt dynamic shifts. He even asks the cellos and basses to strike their strings with the wood of the bow. The music eventually shifts back to the major, and with one final whimsical A major arpeggio, the soloist brings this richly imaginative concerto to a close. 

— All program notes copyright © 2025 Keith Horner.
Comments welcomed: khnotes@sympatico.ca