ABSTRACT
Compared with the Viennese orchestras of Leopold Mozart’s day, the present-day orchestra hardly ever allows the wind instruments to sound comparatively loud enough, whereas the strings are dominating. The sound of wind instruments was very much loved in the eighteenth century in southern Germany and especially by Mozart, and at the time great importance was attached to a clear overall sound. Certainly gaining in this desired clarity are so-called period orchestras, using old instruments and performing with a smaller sized string section. The astonishing shortage of violas is typical of practically all eighteenth-century orchestras. Joseph Haydn often complained about this, and Mozart, who frequently divided his viola parts, must also have wished for a larger number of violas for performances of his works. Models of fine orchestral transcriptions for that purpose are the old Peters editions edited by Kurt Soldan. Many orchestras are in the bad habit of playing too much of the accompaniment in staccato when accompanying Mozart’s concertos.
