132. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Violin Concerto no. 5, "Turkish" (1775)

Recording

Title: Violin Concertos
Performer: Henryk Szeryng, New Philarmonia Orchestra
Director: Alexander Gibson
Year: 1966
Length: 28 minutes

Review

A very delightful piece of work, Mozart brings us a concerto with moments of true brilliance and modernity to it and an amazing section in the middle of the third movement in imitation of Turkish Janissary bands.

But the famous third movement is really not all that this piece is about, the Adagio is a truly beautiful one with some great emotive work on the violin and the Cadenza of the first movement is also pretty nifty.

It is the piece as a whole that works particularly well here, however, the first movement gives hints of the unexpected Turkish interruption in the third movement, the dialogue of the violin with the orchestra and its solos are unlike anything experience until now, it is truly great music. The Turkish section in the last movement almost reminds me of later nationalistic composers, particularly Russian ones, it is that expressive.

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The aperto marking on the first movement is a rare marking, and appears in a few Mozart pieces, but in not many other places. It implies that the piece should be played in a broader, more majestic way than might be implied simply by allegro. The first movement opens with the orchestra playing the main theme, a typical Mozartian tune. The solo violin comes in with a short but sweet dolce adagio passage in A Major with a simple accompaniment in the orchestra. (This is the only instance in Mozart's concerto repertoire in which an adagio interlude of this sort occurs at the first soloist entry of the concerto.) It then transitions back to the main theme with the solo violin playing a different melody on top of the orchestra. The first movement is 10-11 minutes long.

The rondo finale's main theme is a typical Mozartean theme, but the contrasting sections feature loud passages of Turkish music that have caused some to call this the "Turkish Concerto".

Mozart later composed the Adagio for violin and orchestra K. 261 as a substitute slow movement for this concerto.

The famous Turkish section of the third movement: