MOZART Violin Concerto No. 4
By Rachel Barton Pine 

‘You have no idea how well you play the violin. If only you would do yourself justice and play with boldness, spirit and fire, as if you were the greatest violinist in Europe!’ Thus Leopold Mozart (himself a fine violinist, respected composer and famous pedagogue) admonished his son Wolfgang Amadeus in 1777.

Mozart began violin lessons at the tender age of six, under the primary tutelage of his father. As a touring child prodigy, he performed on both violin and keyboard throughout Europe. At the age of 13, Mozart became second concertmaster of the Archbishop of Salzburg’s court orchestra. He frequently led the orchestra and took solo parts, often in his own works. But by 1777, Mozart’s concert activities were focused on the piano, and his preference for the viola was well established. Difficult and sophisticated viola parts feature prominently in the greatest chamber works from the last decade of his life. He usually favored the viola for playing chamber music, such as for the famous quartet evenings with Haydn, Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf and Johann Baptist Vanhal.

The exact order in which Mozart composed his five violin concertos is unknown. The last three were written in 1775 when he was 19. Analyses of his handwriting and the manuscript paper suggest that the first concerto was composed two years earlier. For stylistic reasons, it is believed that the second concerto also must have been written prior to 1775. It is uncertain whether Mozart composed these five concertos for himself or for Antonio Brunetti (who replaced him as concertmaster) as both men had parts in their possession.

All five concertos follow the same structure. The first movements are in sonata form with a double exposition (the first taken by the orchestra and the second by the soloist) and a cadenza at the end of the recapitulation. The second movements are in a contrasting key to the outer movements. They are also in sonata form and offer a cadenza just before the concluding phrase.

K218 is more extroverted and virtuosic than Mozart’s first three concertos. Composed in D major, the traditional key for trumpets and horns, the opening tutti and the soloist’s first entrance begin with a brass-like fanfare. Interestingly, the fanfare never returns, and the first movement’s recapitulation begins with the soloist’s secondary melody. Calmness and simplicity characterize the second movement as the exposition proceeds directly into the recapitulation. The soloist’s final phrase is merely a scale that only Mozart’s genius could have disguised as an inspired melody. The ‘A’ section of the concluding rondo is actually a pair of themes: a passage in a moderate 2/4 that always ends on the dominant before leading into a lively section in 6/8. In the middle of the movement, Mozart surprises us with a stately gavotte, played in part over a drone in imitation of a musette. The last two iterations of the first rondo theme are very abbreviated, and each one features a different accompaniment texture. In contrast to the strong and definitive conclusion to K211, his first D major violin concerto, K218 simply fades away.