Carnegie Hall

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was an accomplished violinist with intimate knowledge of the instrument. His five violin concertos, written roughly between 1773 and 1775 when he was still a teenager, show Mozart developing the concerto genre and injecting it with his signature melodic brilliance and expressivity—but perhaps more impressively, they immediately became hits, with a popularity that has not waned for almost 250 years.

These performance workhorses also occupy a unique position in music history, transforming the formal structure of the Baroque concerto with an emotional and dramatic range that would set the stage for the more florid, Romantic-era concertos to come.

Violin Concerto No. 1 

Mozart was just 17 when he wrote his First Violin Concerto—the first in a series of experiments with the form that, over the course of a very short period, gradually began to owe less and less to Baroque standards. Of his five violin concertos, this one is the most indebted to earlier masters like Vivaldi and Boccherini, but it also departs from them by sometimes allowing the orchestra to enter a more conversational relationship with the violin.

The work is a first in more ways than one: It’s also the first original concerto that Mozart wrote for any instrument. (His first piano concerto would come several months later).

Violin Concerto No. 2

In 1775, Mozart composed all four remaining violin concertos, in addition to an array of chamber works and church music—a feat of prolific writing made only more impressive by the fact that he was just 19 years old.

Known for its simplicity and clarity, Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 2 shows his growing confidence in the genre, elaborating on the style he first began to develop in No. 1. Little is known about the early performance history of these concertos, but it’s likely that Mozart may have premiered these early works himself, playing the solo part while directing the orchestra.

Violin Concerto No. 3

Some works take time to earn the appreciation they deserve; others lose favor over the years. Neither is the case for Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 3, a favorite of performers and audiences alike, both at the time of its composition and today. It is believed that he wrote this concerto for his friend, violinist Antonio Brunetti, who took over for Mozart as concertmaster of Salzburg’s court orchestra when the composer chose to relinquish the position. It’s often called the “Strassburg” Concerto because of the dance-like final movement, which incorporates a traditional Alsatian folk tune.

Violin Concerto No. 4

Because of the first movement’s march-like rhythm, No. 4 is sometimes nicknamed the “Military” Concerto—but it wouldn’t be a Mozart concerto without an opportunity for singable melody, amply provided by the more serene middle movement.

While firmly situated in the Classical era, Mozart’s emphasis on virtuosic writing for the solo violin is another feature that would characterize later Romantic concerto explorations, which privileged the soloist’s individuality. In some ways, Mozart’s development of the concerto mirrors the evolution of his own early mature style, in which he began to integrate his juvenile mastery of Classical forms with his unique artistic voice.

Violin Concerto No. 5

Also known as the “Turkish” Concerto, Mozart’s fifth and final concerto for violin is one of his most popular and widely performed. The first movement is given the marking Allegro aperto, a call for “openness,” or broadness, which he typically reserved for operatic works. (His opera The Abduction from the Seraglio is one of his other notable works featuring “Turkish” music.)

Unusually, the soloist enters with a tempo change to adagio, keeping audiences guessing at the main theme until the orchestra returns, revealing its opening allegro to have been accompaniment. This concerto’s rapid changes in tempo and key—also notable in the “Turkish” section of the final movement—mark the concerto as one of Mozart’s most innovative from this period, an astonishing progression from convention to invention over only two jam-packed years of writing.