Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791)
Concerto in A major for Violin, No. 5, K 219, Turkish

Allegro aperto
Adagio
Tempo di Minuetto – Allegro – Tempo di Minuetto

(1775, approximate duration 31 minutes)

The influence of Mozart’s father is also apparent by the central role given to the violin. Leopold was a leading violin tutor and there is little surprise that when Mozart’s prodigious musical talent began to shine a toddler, he took up the violin as well as the piano. The violin was the instrument he played regularly under his father’s directorship in the Salzburg court orchestra and on tours. It was only when he left the Salzburg court for Vienna in 1781, and so escaped from the direct influence of his father, that he concentrated his efforts as a public performer on the piano. Accordingly, Mozart’s five concertos for solo violin date from his Salzburg years, the later ones between June and December 1775 – the months leading up to his twentieth birthday. The Violin Concerto No. 5, being the last one written, is the most mature, and the most ambitious.

In Mozart’s time, the ala Turc style designated music for a military band with piccolos and Turkish percussion instruments (cymbals, triangles, drums, bells) or music imitating the effect of Turkish band music. The aim was to suggest rather than to copy Turkish music and its usages coincide with concurrent cultural trend: at times, it was used to portray the exotic and remote. At others, the purpose was different.