# Mozart - KV 297b - Sinfonia Concertante for Four Winds in E flat major



## HansZimmer (11 mo ago)

How do you rate this piece?


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## Animal the Drummer (Nov 14, 2015)

Musicologically speaking, holes can be picked in this piece, including a question about its very authorship. I don't care. I've loved it from the moment I first heard it so it gets a loud and proud Excellent vote from me. Favourite version: Daniel Barenboim conducting the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra.


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## Scherzi Cat (8 mo ago)

Very good! I woold vote excellent if we had Mozart’s original score. I prefer the version that Robert Levin completed. He made the argument (convincingly) that someone used Mozart’s solo parts, assigned some of them to different instruments, and then rewrote the orchestration so they could call it their own. Using his expertise in Mozart’s style and composition, he put the solo parts back on Mozart’s intended instruments and rewrote the rest in a more Mozartian style. Here it is by the Frieburger Barockorchester:


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

It's ok...i like mvt III...the theme and variations is very effective, the other movements not so much.....authorship is, of course, open to question. (Cambini, Devienne??)
Intro to mvt I is too long...mvt II is pretty thick in texture...
Still, fun to play, but i prefer the Haydn SC - Violin/Cello/Oboe/Bassoon....now, that is a master at work...


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

Very good I love the wind pieces Mozart wrote, I have a whole box from Netherlands wind ensemble.
The Gran Partita is the very very best. .


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## Animal the Drummer (Nov 14, 2015)

Heck148 said:


> It's ok...i like mvt III...the theme and variations is very effective, the other movements not so much.....authorship is, of course, open to question. (Cambini, Devienne??)
> Intro to mvt I is too long...mvt II is pretty thick in texture...
> Still, fun to play, but i prefer the Haydn SC - Violin/Cello/Oboe/Bassoon....now, that is a master at work...


That Haydn's a piece I admire but have never learned to love. Maybe I haven't heard the right performance yet?


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

One of my favorites from Mozart, certainly a mastepiece. Other composers copied it, notably Martinu, but none equaled it. Many, many outstanding recordings to choose from as well. A woodwind lover's delight.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

Rogerx said:


> Very good I love the wind pieces Mozart wrote, I have a whole box from Netherlands wind ensemble.
> The Gran Partita is the very very best. .


I like the wind serenades a lot better than the Sinfonia Concertante...of those, i like K 375, 388 the best...Eb and c minor


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Heck148 said:


> It's ok...i like mvt III...the theme and variations is very effective, the other movements not so much.....authorship is, of course, open to question. (Cambini, Devienne??)
> Intro to mvt I is too long...mvt II is pretty thick in texture...


It's a strange case. It doesn't sound completely like Mozart, especially not like Mozart 1778! To me it sounds more like a 1790s or even later piece and I don't think that this is only because of the clarinet. I find the idea plausible that someone else worked (maybe considerably later than 1778 (I am not sure if the extant score can be traced to anything earlier than mid-19th century) with some Mozartean material (like the solo parts of the lost concertant with flute, oboe, horn, bassoon).


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## Scherzi Cat (8 mo ago)

Kreisler jr said:


> It's a strange case. It doesn't sound completely like Mozart, especially not like Mozart 1778! To me it sounds more like a 1790s or even later piece and I don't think that this is only because of the clarinet. I find the idea plausible that someone else worked (maybe considerably later than 1778 (I am not sure if the extant score can be traced to anything earlier than mid-19th century) with some Mozartean material (like the solo parts of the lost concertant with flute, oboe, horn, bassoon).


If you are referring to the Gran Partita, the authenticity of the piece, as far as I know, is not in question.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

I am of course referring to the piece this thread is explicitly about and the bit by Heck I quoted was about, namely the notorious woodwind concertante K 297b. 
It's clearly established that it cannot be exactly the piece Mozart mentioned in his letters from Paris because it's with clarinet not with flute. So at the very least someone else must have re-arranged the solo parts but there are many reasons that the orchestral parts are not original Mozart either.


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## Scherzi Cat (8 mo ago)

For those who don't know, Robert Levin is a revered musicologist and expert on Mozart. He analyzed the entire score and it's history and the history of the lost Mozart Concertante and then wrote a article about it, after which he wrote revision of the work based on his analysis.

An excerpt from the Wikipedia article on the Sinfonia Concertante:

_Robert Levin__ analysed the Sinfonia Concertante and compared the structure of the work with known Mozart concertos. From this analysis he concluded that while the orchestral part and the first movement cadenza were spurious, the soloists' roles were based on the Mozart originals but had been modified by an unknown hand to substitute a clarinet for the oboe part and to change the flute for an oboe. This transcription process would have required the music for the three woodwind instruments to have been redistributed to accommodate the substitution of the clarinet for the original oboe part. Levin theorised that the unknown arranger had only the four original Mozart solo parts for reference so had composed the orchestral parts and cadenzas afresh.[13] Levin wrote a book about the work and then went on to make a reconstruction of the supposed original Mozart work based on his research.[14] Levin's reconstruction was recorded by the Academy of St Martin in the Fields under Neville Marriner._

Robert Levin's article is published by Cambridge:








Robert D. Levin, Who Wrote the Mozart Four-Wind Concertante? Stuyvesant, NY, Pendragon Press, 1988. xviii + 472 pp. ISBN 0 918728 33 9. | Journal of the Royal Musical Association | Cambridge Core


Robert D. Levin, Who Wrote the Mozart Four-Wind Concertante? Stuyvesant, NY, Pendragon Press, 1988. xviii + 472 pp. ISBN 0 918728 33 9. - Volume 116 Issue 1




www.cambridge.org


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## Animal the Drummer (Nov 14, 2015)

If that first movement cadenza really is spurious, it was still composed by someone who knew what they were doing.


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