Sinfonia Concertante for Violin, Viola, and Orchestra in E♭ major, K. 364
Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Date of Publication: 1779
Entering his twenties in the late 1770s, Mozart was felt stifled by classical music’s rigidity. He had been working under Hieronymous von Colloredo, the archbishop of Salzburg since 1773, whose restrictions left Mozart unable to experiment. In 1777, a fed-up Mozart forced Colloredo to fire him so he could tour Mannheim and France. Embarrassingly, Mozart couldn’t find a job anywhere else and had to ask Colloredo to give back his position in Salzburg. However, the local music he heard while touring Mannheim and France inspired him to experiment with instrumentation and structure despite Colloredo’s complaints. In 1779, he composed the Sinfonia Concertante for solo Violin and Viola, inspired by the symphonie concertantes he’d heard in Paris.
Symphonie concertantes are similar to concerto Grossos, except with more emphasis on the soloists. They were show-off pieces designed to be played by 2-9 solo instruments to attract more attention to the musicians. As a result, they were written in almost exclusively major keys and featured bright, entertaining melodies. Some historians attribute the form’s overwhelming popularity in 1700s Paris to the growing upper-class audiences in public concert halls and music’s gravitation towards larger orchestras. Parisiens were looking for the grand sound of big orchestras and the impressive virtuosity soloists demonstrated and could find both with the symphonie concertante.
It’s fascinating that Mozart chose the viola to stand as an equal to the violin for his Sinfonia Concertante. At the time, composers dismissed the viola as a filler instrument – supporting another section in melody or harmony but rarely receiving the soli limelight. However, Mozart loved the viola’s warm tone. He preferred to play the viola in string quartets over the violin – in a letter, he said the viola part gave a better perspective of “being in the middle.” In duets with his father, he would play the viola accompaniment to his father’s violin, possibly indicating he wrote this piece to play with his dad. Mozart also thought the viola’s timbre would be perfect to engage in a dialogue with the solo violin throughout his Sinfonia Concertante. Besides the solo viola, he even divided the viola section in the orchestra into two parts to bring the viola sound. Mozart also kept the band section to a minimum of two oboes and two French horns – instruments with a warmer tone that wouldn’t cover the solo viola.
Mozart’s viola expertise only adds to the piece’s irregularity. Mozart used a technique called scordatura while writing the solo viola part. Despite the piece being in Eb major, Mozart wrote the viola solo in D major, forcing performers to tune all their strings a half-step higher. The scordatura served two purposes: by tuning higher, the Eb tonic fell on an open string that resonated better with the key (which used be the viola’s D string) and produced a brighter sound that prevented the violin from drowning it out. Secondly, the manuscript being in D major also made the viola part easier to read and finger. At the time, violists’ techniques paled in comparison to violinists, so this simplification of the viola solo made the piece more accessible.
The first and third movement follow the symphonie concertante’s standard, cheerful tone. Mozart also introduces an almost overwhelming number of melodies playing to the symphonie concertante’s reputation for catchy themes. Often, the solo violin begins a melody, which the solo viola expands upon afterwards by repeating it in a lower register or playing a variation. Mozart also borrows from local music he heard in Mannheim such as the fanfare opening and scherzo like Mannheim sighs in the first movement. Uncharacteristic for Mozart, though, he writes down the piece’s two cadenzas instead of letting the soloists improvise – probably because it’d be difficult to coordinate improv between two soloists.
However, the second movement is unusually sad. It’s written in C minor and features love stricken – almost romantic-era – melodies. The solo violin laments in its song and viola’s warmer melodies offer assurance. An explanation for this melancholic movement lies in Mozart’s personal life. While Mozart was touring in 1777, he visited his friends at the Weber family and reunited with Aloysia Weber, whom he had fallen in love. However, Aloysia rejected him, wanting to establish herself independently as a musician and who looked down at Mozart as an unemployed former prodigy. To make things worse, his mother had died just a year before he composed the Sinfonia Concertante. Alyosia’s rejection probably influenced the second movement’s lover’s dialogue-eques melodies and his mother’s death, the overall somber mood.
Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante left a revolutionary legacy. Despite the symphonie concertante’s colloquial popularity in Paris, concertos for more than one instrument weren’t respected among the elite. The secondary solo parts were usually composed as a gift to nobles. The parts were easier so that royalty members could play along and feel like they’re part of the performance. However, the Sinfonia Concertante quickly became popular (and a staple in Violin-Viola repertoire), opening the way for double and triple concertos from composers such as Brahms and Mendelssohn.
The piece itself was also adapted into several mediums. In 1808 Sigmund Steiner, a german music publisher, published an arrangement of the Sinfonia Concertante for a string sextet (2 violins, 2 violas, cello, and bass) called Grande Sestetto Concertante. And in 1945, George Balanchine choreographed the piece to a ballet originally titled, “Adventure in Ballet” but later changed to “Symphonie Concertante.”
Movements:
I. Allegro maestoso
II. Andante
III. Presto
Fun Fact: Colloredo fired Mozart again after the publications of the Sinfonia Concertante along with Mozart’s other unusually instrumented compositions such as his Divertimento string trio. Mozart sardonically commented Corolledo released him with “a kick on my arse.” Afterwards, Mozart left Salzburg for Vienna.
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