What We Missed: Mozart's Unfinished Concerti

From the nearly thirty years of  Mozart's composing career there remain a large number of uncompleted works. In fact about one out of four compositions that Mozart began was left unfinished. For string players especially, two of these works merit special notice and genuine excitement.

The Concerto for Piano, Violin, and Orchestra in D, App. 56 / K 315 f, with one hundred and twenty measures of the work completed, was begun in November 1778, in Mannheim, during Mozart's journey home from Paris. It was intended as a performance vehicle for the Mannheim Orchestra, with Mozart and Igmar Fränzl, the orchestra's fine concertmaster, as the soloists. Clearly conceived as a work of grand proportions, the seventy-four measures of the opening tutti, the finished portion of the concerto, constitute, as Robert Levin has pointed out, Mozart's most extended ritornello with the exception of the Piano Concerto in C. K 503.

The opening entrance of the violin teems with ebullient energy and virtuoso spirit. Subsequent violin passages evoke the elements of Mozart's great vocal compositions, with florid, 16 th note, arpeggiated patterns vividly supporting the solo piano's melodic line. (click for illustration of Mozart's hand-written manuscript )  Since all five of the Mozart violin concerti were written earlier, between April 1773 and December 1775, this later work gives us glimpses of the advances taking place in the composer's instrumental style and musical depth, which were to reach a new peak with the Sinfonia concertante for Violin, Viola and Orchestra, K 364, written in Salzburg in 1779.

After his move to Vienna in 1781 Mozart composed no further violin concerti. The only other significant violin solos with orchestra remain a violin obligato  to the tenor aria, which was added to Idomeneo, K 490 for a performance at the Auersperg Palace on March 13, 1786.

Now, let us consider another unfinished fragment, the Sinfonia concertante in A major for Violin, Viola, Cello and Orchestra, KV Anhang 104 / 320 e. It is interesting to view it as a possible companion piece to the well known Sinfonia concertante for Violin, Viola Piano and Orchestra in E flat, K 364. The one hundred and thirty four measures completed by Mozart were written in the same year, 1779, as K 364. The orchestral instrumentation of strings, (including 2 viola parts,) 2 oboes, 2 horns, is identical in both, and both works employ scordatura tuning for the solo viola. In the E flat work, K 364, the viola is tuned a half-step higher, and in the A major, unfinished work, the viola is tuned one whole step higher. This change offers to the viola the advantages of the brighter sound, the more congenial fingerings, and the ringing harmonies of the D Major and G Major keys, respectively.

In the manuscripts one can see the greater virtuoso demands from the instrument than can be found in K 364. It is even possible the Mozart tailored the viola part of K 364 for himself.

As singular as the use of the viola is in this piece, it may even be exceeded by that of the cello. In the King of Prussia Quartets, K 575, 589, 590, 1789 - 1790, as in the Trio in E flat for Violin, Viola, and Cello, K 563, 1788 the cello is certainly accorded a prominent role. What is truly remarkable about the A Major fragment however, is that this is the only work in the entire oeuvre in which the cello is treated as a solo instrument in concerto format. While in previous works Mozart uses the cello predominantly as the bass line, here he uniquely redefines its role as a soprano voice. In a letter to his father, Leopold, dated February 28, 1778 Mozart writes, "I like an aria to fit a singer as perfectly as a well-tailored suit of clothes [does]." We can only wonder then, for whose cello voice was this magnificent part written, and how might the cello have been a significantly expanded virtuoso and lyric instrument had Mozart completed this concerto? (click for illustration of Mozart's hand-written manuscript ) ###
                                                                                             
                                                                                                      Paul Hersh

Paul Hersh is a pianist and violist who serves on the faculty of the
San Francisco Conservatory of Music