Horn Concerto No. 4 (Mozart)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Horn Concerto No. 4 in E-flat major, K. 495 was completed in 1786.

Horn Concerto in E-flat major
No. 4
by W. A. Mozart
The composer in 1782
KeyE-flat major
CatalogueK. 495
GenreConcerto
StyleClassical period
Composed1786 (1786)
Duration16-18 minutes
MovementsThree (Allegro, Larghetto, Allegro)
Scoring

Structure

The work is in three movements:

  1. Allegro moderato
  2. Romance (Andante cantabile)
  3. Rondo (Allegro vivace) 6/8[1]

A typical performance duration of the concerto takes 16–18 minutes.

The manuscript, written in red, green, blue, and black ink, was formerly considered as a jocular attempt to rattle the intended performer, Mozart's friend Joseph Leutgeb. However, recently it was suggested that the multicolored score may also be a kind of "color code".[2]

The last movement is a "quite obvious" example of the hunt topic, "in which the intervallic construction, featuring prominent tonic and dominant triads in the main melody, was to some degree dictated by the capability of the horn, and so was more closely allied with the original 'pure' characteristics of the 'chasse' as an open-air hunting call."[3]

This concerto is one of Mozart's two horn concerti to have ripieno horns (horns included in the orchestra besides the soloist), though, in contrast to K. 417, the solo horn in this one duplicates the first ripieno horn's part in the tutti passages.[4]

Discography

Given its duration (no more than 20 minutes), it is quite common to find this Horn Concerto with Mozart's other three.

Discography on modern instruments

Discography on period instruments

In 1963 Flanders and Swann set the Rondo movement to words for their song "Ill Wind" from the album At the Drop of Another Hat.

References
  1. Jean-Pierre Marty, The Tempo Indications of Mozart. New Haven & London: Yale University Press (1988): 43. "The very absence of sixteenths is also an incentive towards overly fast tempos, and this is why the finales of the Horn Concertos K.386b, 417 and 447 are almost always performed faster than 88/264. Yet, the finale of K.417 ends with a coda marked Più allegro, and the finale of the fourth horn concerto (K.495), though very similar in style to the other three, is marked Allegro vivace."
  2. Mozart, W. A. (2002). Hornkonzert Nr. 4 Es-dur KV 495. Klavierauszug. Wiese, Henrik (preface). München: G. Henle Verlag. pp. III. ISMN M-2018-0704-1
  3. John Irving, Mozart, the "Haydn" quartets. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1998): 95, note 20. "Once defined, however, such 'chasse' characteristics could survive transplantation to other instruments and genres," such as the String Quartet in B-flat, K. 458.
  4. Leavis R (1953). "Mozart's Last Horn Concerto". Music & Letters. 34 (4): 316. doi:10.1093/ml/xxxiv.4.315.
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