Mozart, Concerto for oboe, in C major

At the age of 21 and accompanied by his mother, on September 22, 1777, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart embarked on a journey that would take him to Augsburg, Mannheim, and Paris, in search of the longed-for position at court that had eluded him throughout his life. As was customary in the family, letters exchanged by Wolfgang and Maria Anna with their father and husband, Leopold, abounded. Thanks to them, scholars have concluded that the Concerto for Oboe and Strings in C major, lost for a century and a half, was then traveling with the Mozart family in its autographed version.

Giuseppe Ferlendis was a young oboe virtuoso from Bergamo, Italy. His induction into the court of Salzburg is dated April 1, 1777, according to the decree signed by Archbishop Colloredo. About the same age as Mozart, they became close friends. It is unknown whether Ferlendis asked Mozart for the composition, but from the noted letters it is clear that Mozart is making the trip taking with him the originals of an oboe concerto written for him. Moreover, in Mannheim, he took the opportunity to give the same concerto to Friedrich Ramm, oboist of the famous court.

Mozart wearing the badge of the
Order of the Golden Spur, 1770.

Ramm was delighted with the concerto, making it his "workhorse", his "cheval de bataille", in Wolfgang's words. In a few weeks, he was able to perform it five times, thus reaching the ears of the amateur flutist Ferdinand de Jean, a young Dutch flute player, who, after meeting the composer, commissioned no less than two quartets and three flute concertos from Mozart for the sum of two hundred guldens, which suited wonderfully Wolfgang and his mother to pay for food and lodging.

Mozart underpaid
Wolfgang Amadeus set himself to the task, but, as "one is not always in a good mood to compose", he only managed to compose two of the three concertos agreed upon. He made up for the third with the transposition of the oboe concerto. Although it was customary at the time to arrange his own and others' concertos for another instrument, the amateur flutist was not satisfied. He paid only 96 gulden of the promised two hundred. Upon receiving them, Mozart assumed that it was an advance, commenting to his father that the Dutchman must believe that 96 gulden are half of two hundred.

Oboe Concerto in C major, KV 314
Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries only the flute version (Concerto No. 2 in D major, K 314) was known, although it was always understood to be a transposition, a recreation in an "alternative" format of a lost original.
This lost original, for the oboe, was only discovered in 1920, in Salzburg, thus closing the life cycle of the only oboe concerto Mozart wrote, today the best-known and most sought-after in the repertoire for the instrument, for its exquisite grace and elegance.

Movements
00:00  Allegro aperto (somewhat more majestic than an "ordinary" allegro).
08:03  Adagio non troppo
15:36  Rondo: Allegretto

The performance is by the French oboist and conductor François Leleux, accompanied by the hr-Sinfonieorchester conducted by the Spanish maestro Andrés Orozco-Estrada.