Violin Concerto No. 3 (Mozart)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In Salzburg, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed a number of concertos for garden parties, weddings, birthdays or home concerts for friends and patrons. The most popular was the Violin Concerto No. 3 in G major K. 216, composed in 1775. The movements are:

• I. Allegro
• II. Adagio
• III. Rondeau

The first movement is in Sonata form, and opens with the main G major theme played by the orchestra: a typical radiant Mozartian tune. The violin then repeats the beginning of the theme as a solo. After a short orchestral passage, the violin enters once again, by playing a G major broken chord in the form of minim-crotchet-crotchet-minim. The ornamented solo modulates from G to A Major, B minor and finally D Major, where the violin ends the passage with a low D after a sixteenth-notes only brilliant passage. As the orchestra plays, the melody goes from D Major to minor, when the violin enters with two minims and a descending D minor scale. The orchestra answers back to the violin, and this occurs several times, until the violin plays the exact same motif in C Major. Then, the melody turns to expressivo, and ultimately back into D major. After a small cadenza, the orchestra concludes the passage, and the solo violin re-appears in G major, exactly as in the first solo. A sudden change is noticeable from G major to A minor, to G major, E minor, D major, and finally G major again. After a rise to the fourth position in the solo violin, the movement concludes in G major.

The second movement is also in ABA form, and in the dominant key: D major. The orchestra begins by playing the well known and beautiful main theme, which the violin imitates one octave higher. The winds then play a dance-like motif in A major, which the violin concludes by its own. After a conclusion in A, the violin plays the main theme again, remaining in the same key. When it should have sounded A natural, it sounds A sharp, and the melody switches to B minor, in a fairly tragic passage. It soon modulates back to A major, and to the home key of D major through the main theme. After the cadenza, and in a quite unusual thing for Mozart to do, the violin plays the main theme again , thus concluding the movement in D.

The third movement is a Rondeau Allegro, and opens with an orchestra theme which gave the concerto its nickname: "Strassburg". After a lonely, short passage by the oboes only, the solo violin enters with a different melody which modulates to D. A brilliant and high passage in D is soon followed by a descending arpeggio-like melodic line which eventually leads to the G string and repeats itself. After the second time, the violin plays the lonely oboe line from the introduction. A chromatic scale then leads to the "Strassburg" theme with the violin playing. The orchestra imitates the violin and abruptly changes to B minor and a B minor violin theme: the exact same theme as in the first violin solo, played in the relative minor key. As the theme itself repeats, it once again abruptly changes to E minor. The small E minor cadenza introduces the orchestra, which once again plays the "Strassburg" theme in G Major. After a couple of bars in D Major by the orchestra, the music goes from Allegro to an Andante in G minor, almost in the fashion of a Scherzo-Trio form. The strings play saltato quavers while the violin plays a note-rest small melodic line which repeats itself and eventually leads to a G Major Allegretto. The violin plays a crotchet-only playful theme, while the orchestra plays brilliant and fast threesome up-and-down notes, in a way that the solo violin's part acts as a background only. The parts switch and now the orchestra plays the playful theme, while the violin gets to show off by playing fast notes. The quick passages stops for the violin to play a more ceremonial theme played in the D and A strings, in the fashion of a Musette. This pattern sounds two more times until the violin concludes the fast theme with a low G, and switches to Tempo 1. After a few bars, the first solo theme that the violin played is played as a variation in A minor. The violin plays the "Strassburg" theme in G minor, and the orchestra imitates it in the usual form of G major. After the typical first solo variation, this time in the tonic key. the violin plays another small cadenza which leads to the last "Strassburg" theme played in two octaves. The orchestra plays it one third time in the lower octave. Instead of ending the concerto in a pompous way, Mozart choose to end it instead with the lonely oboe theme in G major played piano, adding the feeling of a musical "disappearing".