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By the time Mozart’s widow Constanze put the legacy of her deceased
husband into order for publishing large parts of his horn concertos had been
lost. Passages from the two concertos in E-flat Major (K 417 and K 495) were
missing, and the copies of these works were to a large extent unreliable.
There are, in fact, very few horn concertos in Mozart’s opus, and there are
many formal, harmonic and melodic similarities between the extant works.
Often they were written on reserve or surplus manuscript paper, and the
haste of their execution is evidenced by undetermined articulation marks
or tempi. Although the composer himself may not have attributed a great
deal of importance to these compositions relative to those of other musical
genres, today they count amongst the great achievements of the musical
literature for the horn.
Mozart became familiar with the horn at a very early age, as his family was
often visited by Joseph Leutgeb (Leitgeb), a horn player of the court chapel
and a friend of Mozart’s father. With Leopold’s financial assistance Leutgeb
gained his independence and opened a cheese shop in Vienna, while at the
same time supplementing his income as an occasional ‘freelance artist’ – a
horn player. When the young Mozart arrived in Vienna he made Leutgeb’s
acquaintance again and wrote several works for horn for him – not without
a hint of mischief, or at least playfulness, as in these works he always pokes
fun at Leutgeb to some extent. Thus the manuscript for the Horn Concerto
No. 2 from 1783 bears the dedication: “Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart took pity
on Leitgeb, a foolish ass, ox and madman, in Vienna, 27 May 1783”. Mozart’s
‘pity’ was nonetheless well-intentioned, as the work abounds with freshness
and inspiration, offering the soloist sufficient manoeuvring space to display
his skill. The introductory sonata movement is followed by a cantabile Andante,
in which the soft colour of the instrument stands out. The concerto
concludes with a lively rondo in the popular hunting style.
One year earlier, Mozart had written the concerto that he most frequently
performed himself: the Piano Concerto No. 12 in A Major. The frequency of
its performance is evidenced by the fact that for each movement there are
two extant cadenzas; furthermore, Mozart replaced the concluding rondo
with a new movement, today’s K 386. In the spring of 1783 he revised the
work, along with two other piano concertos that had been written around
the same time (K 413 and K 415). The concerto was written soon after the
composer’s arrival in Vienna, at the time that Mozart achieved recognition
with The Abduction from the Seraglio, but the precise reason for the work’s
composition is not known. In a letter to his father, Mozart described the piece
as “something between too heavy and too light”, which nonetheless pleases
the ear. It is true that at this time Mozart pleased the public – his concerts were
well attended. The composer continued to take advantage of the whimsical
favour of the public in the following years, when some of his greatest piano
concertos were written.
The charm of the Piano Concerto No. 12 in A Major lies primarily in the fine
detail woven into it. The work’s three movements are contrasting in character.
The first movement, a sonata movement with a double exposition, is luminous