Concerto in G Major for Flute and Orchestra, K. 313

Allegro maestoso
Adagio non troppo
Rondo:  Tempo di Menuetto

Concerto in D Major for Flute and Orchestra, K. 314

Allegro aperto
Andante ma non troppo
Allegro

Program Notes by Martin Pearlman

During an extended musical tour with his mother, Mozart spent the winter of 1777-78 in Mannheim.  There he became familiar with the fine orchestra and well-known musicians in that city, became active in the local musical life, and pursued (unsuccessfully) a post at the electoral court.  Through the orchestra's flutist, Johann Baptist Wendling, Mozart met the amateur flutist (and surgeon with the Dutch East India Company) Ferdinand de Jean, who commissioned him to compose "three short, simple concertos and a couple of quartets for the flute."  From this commission came his two flute concertos plus a pair of quartets for flute and strings. 

Mozart never did write the third concerto, and it turns out that even the second was not an original work.  In 1920, when the parts to Mozart's C Major Oboe Concerto were rediscovered in Salzburg, it became clear that his Flute Concerto in D was simply a reworking of the Oboe Concerto.  Evidently, after having written one original flute concerto in G major, Mozart reworked the oboe concerto for the flute, in order to quickly supply at least two of the three concertos that de Jean had commissioned.

Why did he not complete the commission?  He excused himself in a letter to his father:  "I never have a single quiet hour here. I can only compose at night. . . Besides, one is not always in the mood for working. I could, to be sure, scribble off things the whole day long, but a composition of this kind goes out into the world."  But he also gives another, more widely quoted reason:  "You know that I become quite powerless whenever I am obliged to write for an instrument which I cannot bear."  Flutists and others have worked hard to explain away this last complaint.  Many people have felt that he could not have written such beautiful music for an instrument he did not like.  Others have suggested that Mozart may have been tired of the tremendous popularity of the flute among mediocre amateurs and dilettantes at the time. 

In the end, de Jean was clearly dissatisfied with Mozart and left for Paris after having paid him less than half the fee agreed upon.  He had asked for "three short, simple concertos," and Mozart clearly had not given him three.  But he also did not give him pieces that were very short and simple, and whether that disturbed de Jean we will never know.  There are certainly passages that require considerable virtuosity, and in that respect, the amateur flutist may have gotten more than he bargained for.  "But a composition of this kind goes out into the world," as Mozart said, and for that the rest of us are grateful.

Boston Baroque Performances

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