Oboe Concerto in C major K.314

Mozart’s attitude to the flute was, at best, ambiguous. His declaration to his father, in a letter home from Mannheim in 1778, that it was “an instrument that I detest” seems to leave little room for doubt. But, as Leopold immediately realised, his son was making excuses for failing to fulfil the terms of a commission and for losing more than half his fee in consequence: he didn’t have the time, he wasn’t in the mood… and, as he did not say, he was distracted by a growing passion for Aloysia Weber. The fact is, however, that having been asked by an amateur flautist, Ferdinand Dejean, to write three concertos and four quartets, he lost interest in the project before completing it. Of the two concertos he did write, only the one in G K.313 was conceived specifically for the flute: the Concerto in D K314 is an arrangement of an Oboe Concerto in C written for Giuseppe Ferlendis in Salzburg a year earlier.

Considering that the Oboe Concerto was well known in Mannheim - Friedrich Ramm played it five times there in 1778 - Mozart was taking a professional risk in presenting it as a Flute Concerto. There was no musical risk however. Transposed up a tone, the oboe part lends itself well to the flute, not least in the more lyrical passages, like the second subject of the first movement and the prettily expressive Andante con moto, but above all in the cheerful finale. Based on a theme that would later be adopted as Blondchen’s “Welche Wonne, welche Lust” in Die Entführung, the closing Allegro is a brilliantly witty rondo with some delightful exchanges of material between soloist and orchestra.

Mozart’s favourite member of the woodwind family was without doubt the clarinet. But in the earlier part of his career he knew comparatively little about the instrument, which was not represented in the Salzburg court orchestra, and he had certainly not met a clarinettist of the quality of Anton Stadler, who was to inspire the Clarinet Quintet and the Clarinet Concerto in the last few years of year of his life. During his time as Konzertmeister in Salzburg he did, however, know Giuseppe Ferlendis, oboist in the court orchestra from 1777 to 1778, and it was for him - shortly before the composer left for Mannheim and Paris in 1777 - that he wrote the Oboe Concerto in C major. What Ferlendis made of the work we do not know but the Mannheim oboist Friedrich Ramm was “quite crazy with delight about it,” Mozart told his father: “It is making a great sensation here.” Since the score was so well known in Mannheim it is perhaps not surprising that when Mozart presented it as a Flute Concerto, identical in every respect except that it was transposed into D major, the flautist who had commissioned it refused to pay him for it.

Ramm’s enthusiasm for the Oboe Concerto is easy to understand. It gives the soloist an opportunity to show off not only his technique but also his personality. On its first entry the oboe refuses to repeat the main theme already introduced by the orchestra but holds a long top C while the violins perform the thematic duty. Before it consents to adopt the orchestra’s second subject it interpolates an interesting new theme of its own, mischievously based on idea that when the orchestra first played it had seemed a mere formality. It is that theme which, in a brief exchange with the second violins, the oboe chooses to feature in the development section but, paradoxically, leaves out of the recapitulation - giving the soloist the opportunity the option of alluding to it in the cadenza (in the absence of a cadenza by Mozart himself the soloist is free to do what he or she thinks appropriate at this point).

In the second and third movements the solo instrument is cast as an opera star. Solemnly introduced by the orchestra, the Adagio non troppo is a lyrical aria for oboe most effectively coloured by some of the expressive devices - chromatic inflections, wide leaps, rhythmic syncopations, pauses to catch the breath - that would have been equally well suited to the soprano heroine of one of his operas. The opening theme of the last movement Mozart actually did award to an operatic soprano: five years later it became Blondchen’s delightful aria “Welche Wonne, welche Lust” in Die Entführung aus dem Serail. It is no less delightful here as the main theme of a rondo all the more entertaining for its witty exchanges of material between soloist and orchestra.

Gerald Larner ©2005