The first testimony we have of the little man's musical activity is a harpsichord concerto he composed in 1760, at the age of four. The score was covered with ink stains. The old family friend, trumpeter Schachtner, reports the following dialogue: DAD: What are you doing?
WOLFGANG: A concerto for Harpsichord; the first part is almost finished.
PAPA: Let me see.
WOLFGANG. WOLFGANG: It's not finished yet.
DAD: Let's see it; it must be something great! Schachtner continued: The father took the sheet of paper from him and showed me a scribble of notes, most of which were written over erased ink spots. Little Wolfgang, in fact, out of ignorance, dipped his pen to the bottom of the inkwell; a stain resulted, but he quickly made up his mind, passed the flat of his hand over it, smudged everything and started writing again. At first we laughed at what appeared to be a scribble, but then the father turned his attention to the essential, that is to say, to the notes and the composition, and for a long time he remained motionless with his attention fixed on the paper. Finally he let two tears fall, tears of admiration and joy. You see, Mr Schachtner, he tells me, how everything is correct and regular; only it is not playable; it is so appallingly difficult that no one could carry it out. - That's why it's a concerto! interrupted little Wolfgang; we must practice until we can do it, you see; it has to go like that! - And he began to play, but he could only get just enough out of it to show us what he was getting at. He already had in his mind the whole conception of the concerto! We no longer have this springtime sketch of the genre in which Mozart's genius was to bear such beautiful fruit, but we still have different concerto adaptations of sonatas by various contemporary harpsichordists. They are grouped together to form four concertos (Nos.1-4). These were undoubtedly exercises undertaken under the paternal direction. It is always with a certain sense of reverence that we approach the work of art which, without itself being a masterpiece, stands at the head of a series of masterpieces. Beethoven's first symphony, Wagner's first opera, Racine's first tragedy may be of little value in themselves; by their position at the entrance to a path where great works are spread out, they are illuminated by a reflected light, and that is enough to make them venerable. It is with a sense of reverence, likewise, that we approach the commentary on Mozart's early concertos. They are little in comparison with those who will follow them; nevertheless, they are their elders and, if only for that reason, they are entitled to our respect. Mozart's first real concerto for solo instrument and orchestra dates from December 1773 and is written for the harpsichord (K.175). This little concerto is animated by a vitality that we will not find again in Mozart's work in a few years; it is a last personal manifestation before the years of gallant music fade away. Nevertheless, it so happens that Mozart's first concertos and especially the first of all do not need their title of elders to interest us. They have a charm of their own and they can, momentarily at least, hold us back and please us. Whoever is willing to linger on the edge of these limpid waters and examine their slightest beauty with a meticulous and loving gaze will be sufficiently rewarded by the joys of this task without the distant vision of the more grandiose concertos they preceded being necessary to encourage his perseverance. All that was needed was for an external circumstance to come along, even if only momentarily, to free the young musician from the shackles imposed on him by convention. This circumstance presented itself in January 1777. He then passed to Salzburg a French pianist of a certain renown, Mlle (Miss) Jeunehomme, and a concerto was commissioned from Mozart. The presence of this foreign virtuoso reawakened all his enthusiasm; eager to show himself at his best in front of an interpreter far more interesting than the Countess de Lodron and her daughters, he had to bring to a conscious state the work that had been done in him without his knowledge. In the 1776 concertos, the importance of the audience was paramount; its taste determined the tune of the work. It is now the composer who is important; the public has taken a back seat. It is much more a matter of expressing himself than of timidly tending to the taste of the listeners; this alone is enough to explain all the differences between this concerto and the previous ones. Let us list some of them. The very personal beginning is unique in the concerto K.271, not only in the Salzburg concertos, but even in the whole of Mozart. The themes of the first two movements are characterized and the middle of the allegro is no longer an episode, but a true thematic development. The combination of orchestra and solo becomes, at times, intimate again, and in some passages we can think we have returned to the time of the first concerto. The whole andantino bears witness to this independence. It rises far above the andantes of the previous concertos, and the personal expression makes no concessions to current tastes. And even the finale, although it is the most conventional of the three movements, reveals this same concern for personal thought by the extreme freedom of its structure, by its exuberance and by the absence of any pure virtuosity, devoid of expressive scope. It is an exaggeration to claim that Mozart reached in this gentle work the level of the great compositions of 1784-1786. This is not the case; he lacks the maturity of these beautiful pages, and even the andantino, moving as it is, expresses a more juvenile, more outward pain than that of the minor andantes of the Vienna years. But it is the first of his piano concertos that can be performed in concert as a great work, and is a milestone in the history of the young composer's development. We insisted on its originality, its independence, its very arrogance, towards the public, to which it bears witness. This is the first time Mozart has allowed himself such freedom. He will not take it every day, by the way. In 1777, he felt sure of himself. But before long he will leave for Mannheim and then for Paris; he will have a new public and other tastes to reconcile, and once again he will submit to demands from outside. Then, on his return to Salzburg, he will again seek to please those whom he has tried in vain to get rid of; finally, in Vienna, he will find himself in the same situation as in France, and for some time he will bend to the tastes of this new public. It was perhaps only seven or eight years later, around 1784, that he regained for good the boldness that the visit of the French pianist had given him the opportunity to express.. END
