For Mozart, a virtuoso keyboardist from the age of 5, the violin was a second instrument.
Following his teenage years, Mozart largely abandoned performing publicly on the violin to focus on the piano. He composed his 21 mature piano concertos from age 20 to the final year of his life.
Still, by all accounts, Mozart played the violin exceptionally well. In 1756, the year of Mozart’s birth, his father Leopold published a treatise on violin playing that remains influential. With Leopold as his teacher, Mozart performed as violin soloist with the Salzburg court orchestra at the age of 7. Following a concert in 1777, Mozart wrote to his father “I played as if I were the finest fiddler in all Europe,” to which his father replied, “You yourself do not know how well you play the violin.”
All but the first of Mozart’s five violin concertos were written in 1775 when the composer was 19. “Mozart’s compositional development in the concerto genre can be traced through an examination of these five concertos,” writes musicologist Elizabeth Seitz. “…One can clearly see in them Mozart’s progression from a competent composer indebted to the past, to a master of the genre, experimenting with innovative techniques such as abrupt shifts in tone, texture, and passion within a single movement.”
Nowhere are these innovations more apparent than in the Violin Concerto No. 5 in A Major, K. 219, nicknamed the “Turkish” Concerto because of the wild dance in its final movement. The first movement (Allegro aperto-Adagio-Allegro aperto) defies expectations from the beginning. Its opening orchestral tutti concludes by trailing off into silence. Then, unexpectedly, the solo violin initiates a tender Adagio. Soon comes the expected Allegro section. Now, the orchestra’s music from the opening bars, comprised of exuberant rocket-like ascending arpeggios, becomes exuberant accompaniment for a dazzling new theme presented by the solo violin. It begins by soaring upwards into the violin’s highest register. Mozart’s marking, “aperto,” translates from Italian as “open,” suggesting the expanse of the outdoors. The development section moves to minor with sighing figures and a sense of operatic drama.
Moving to E major, the second movement (Adagio) is an expansive aria. It begins as a serene and contemplative statement and ventures into territory which is at once passionate, mysterious, and melancholy. Antonio Brunetti, leader of the Salzburg court orchestra, found the movement too “academic,” and requested that it be replaced. Mozart obliged with the pristine and songful Adagio in E Major, K. 261, which is now heard as a standalone piece.
Turkish music was wildly popular across Europe at the time. The sounds of military bands from the Ottoman Empire were in the air. Foreshadowings of the Rondo’s Turkish dance can be heard in the first movement’s development section.
The Rondo (Tempo di minuetto – Allegro – Tempo di minuetto) begins as a graceful minuet. In the movement’s middle section, the elegant 3/4 meter shifts suddenly into double meter, and the harmony turns to an exotic minor. The violin becomes a fiddle, and we are swept into the boisterous Turkish dance. The cellos and basses play with the wood of the bow to create a slapping, percussive beat. It is music filled with fun, youthfulness, and adventure.
This performance features German violinist Isabelle Faust in concert with Bernard Haitink and the Boston Symphony Orchestra:
Isabelle Faust’s 2016 Studio Recording with Giovanni Antonini and Il Giardino Armonico
Recordings
- Mozart: Violin Concerto No. 5 in A Major, “Turkish,” K. 219, Isabelle Faust, Giovanni Antonini, Il Giardino Armonico Harmonia Mundi