Mozart Violin Concertos

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If most composers are happy with writing just one or two violin concertos – Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Bach… Mozart wasn’t, and wrote an astonishing five violin concertos, each one an exquisite masterpiece. Which is incredible, when you consider that Mozart was just 17 when he wrote the first in 1773 and 19 when we got round to writing the other four in Vienna.

All five of them have a natural, graceful flow to them – they’re nothing quite like anything Mozart had written before – more graceful, expressive and brilliantly structured. He seems to have grown as a composer from the First Concerto, a beautiful, simple work, through the second with its tighter structure and the third’s dramatic depth. The fourth gives a much more prominent role to the soloist at last, while the fifth’s final movement includes a wild Turkish March – Mozart was clearly clued into the fashion for all things Ottoman at the end of the 18th century.

But all five concertos share a magical spontaneity, the violin parts sound almost improvised, bouncing off the orchestra, engaging it in delightful, witty conversations. And Mozart pours his soul into the slow movements, which are like the tenderest, most heartfelt opera arias.

So who were these concertos written for? We don’t really know, though Mozart may possibly have written them for himself as he wasn’t a bad violinist – his father, Leopold, who taught him a young boy, thought he could have been one of the greats, if only he’d practised a bit more… His father wrote that ‘many people do not even known that you play the violin, since you have been known from childhood as a piano player.’ But he was clearly a good enough violinist to be court music director in Salzburg and evidently loved the instrument – besides the concertos, he wrote one of this great works, the Sinfonia Concertante for violin, viola and orchestra, a Concertone for two violins and orchestra and more than 30 violin sonatas. More than he wrote for solo piano.

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