ABSTRACT
Predating any of Mozart’s ‘original’ piano concertos are several ‘pasticcios’, that is, concerted transcriptions of movements from solo sonatas by other composers. There are two sets of ‘pasticcios’, dating respectively from 1767 and 1772. The first set, consisting of K.37, 39, 40 and 41, contains arrangements principally of sonatas for piano ‘avec accompagnement de violon’ by four composers whom Mozart had encountered in Paris in 1764–65: Johann Schobert (c. 1740–67), Leontzi Honauer (1737–790), Johann Gottfried Eckard (1735–1809) and Hermann Friedrich Raupach (1728–78). 1 The second, K. 107/i—iii, is based on three of Johann Christian Bach’s solo keyboard sonatas, op.5 nos.2, 3 and 4. In each case, Mozart’s practice was to insert sections of the original sonata movements as solos between ‘orchestral’ tuttis (also derived from the sonatas) that punctuate the outlines of the form. The resulting pattern, typical of ritornello schemes encountered in the mid-eighteenth-century concerto, is an alternation of four tuttis and three solos. In the earliest set, K.37 and K.39—41, Mozart scores the tuttis for an ensemble including strings, woodwind and horns (additionally with trumpets in K.40). In the solo episodes the strings are generally the only tutti instruments to participate, although long-held horn notes are occasionally inserted to strengthen the harmony. In K. 107/i—iii, Mozart’s ‘tutti’ ensemble consists only of a pair of violins and continuo bass, although the string writing is frequently quite full and florid. 2
