Flute Concerto No. 1, K313 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
The charm, intricacy and technical brilliance of Mozart’s masterpiece captivate Claire Jackson as she chooses the finest available recordings
The work
It is often said that Mozart disliked the flute intensely. Perhaps the rumour was put about by mischievous clarinet players, who have to make do with just the one (albeit glorious) concerto to the flautists’ two. The claim is attributed to a letter the 22-year-old composer dispatched to his father while on tour in Mannheim in 1777 – chaperoned, for the first time, by his mother. In the correspondence, Mozart junior describes the burden of fulfilling his current commission: ‘three short, simple concertos and two quartets’ for the princely sum of 200 florins, requested by the amateur Dutch flautist Ferdinand Dejean, whom the composer had encountered through his connections with the Mannheim Orchestra.
At the time the letter was written, Dejean had yet to pay the full fee – although Mozart had yet to deliver the full amount of music. ‘You know that I become quite powerless whenever I am obliged to write for an instrument I cannot bear,’ complained the young composer. Whether the creator of some of the flute’s most beautiful music had his tongue in his cheek doesn’t seem to matter: the words have been quoted ever since.
Dejean eventually received two pieces, one of which was the work we now know as the Concerto in G, K313 (Flute Concerto No. 1). Mozart largely ignored the brief. Clocking in at around 25 minutes the concerto is not ‘short’, especially for the period, nor could it be said to be ‘simple’. The three movements are packed with virtuosic melodies. While the double tonguing, grace notes and expansive phrasing might seem tame to contemporary ears familiar with extended techniques – such as flutter tonguing and circular breathing – it is worth remembering that Mozart was writing for the wooden Baroque flute. The jumping passages in the Rondo and rounded sound required in the Adagio are relatively easy to achieve on today’s instruments, but before Theobald Boehm – the creator of the 19th-century key mechanism system – such effects would have required highly skilled musicianship.
Dejean was rattled. This was not a parlour piece for an enthusiastic patron, but a work that would, sure enough, stand the test of history. And Mozart did not help matters when the second work he turned in transpired to be a transcription of an oboe concerto rather than an original creation. The composer’s mind may well have been elsewhere: he was busy trying to woo 15-year-old Aloysia Weber, elder sister of Constanze, whom he would eventually marry.
The opening Allegro maestoso is centred around a simple dotted rhythm. The rise and fall of the melody is established first by the orchestra and then passed to the
‘I am quite powerless whenever I am obliged to write for an instrument I cannot bear’
flute. It’s classic Mozart – this rhythmic hallmark can be heard throughout his mid-period, including some of the piano concertos. The flute part alternately scurries and soars, mining the thematic material for varying golden nuggets. Soloists are encouraged to make their own mark with a customary cadenza. While flautists in Mozart’s day would have likely improvised their own, 21st-century players are turning to composers to create increasingly complex flourishes.
The Adagio is given that controversial caveat ‘ma non troppo’ – ‘but not too much’. It is this central section that is most broadly interpreted, with some conductors drawing out the off-beat, flexing passages with an almost nonchalant disconnection from the outer movements. The two oboes are replaced with flutes – a technique that Mozart had recently explored in the equivalent movement in his Third Violin
Concerto. The rest of the ensemble is muted, imbuing a sense of chamber music.
The Rondo is the real showstopper, the solo part packed with rolling melodies, supported by a sparse bass. It is here that the flautist must give the impression that every leap and trill is nothing more than an instinctive exhalation; the best versions feel effortless, light and joyful.
Live performances of Mozart’s First Flute Concerto are fairly unusual today. If flautists are booked for a concerto – something of a rarity in itself – they are far more likely to select one of the more technically interesting works from the 20th century (such as that by Ibert) or a contemporary concertante piece. Luckily, the G major concerto is well served by recordings. The work is frequently coupled with the Second Flute Concerto or the Flute and Harp Concerto, which Mozart wrote after leaving Mannheim for Paris.
Turn the page to discover which recordings of Mozart’s Flute Concerto No. 1 we recommend