Horn Concerto No. 4 in E-flat major, K. 495

Program notes

About the Work

All of Mozart’s horn concertos were written for one man: Joseph Leutgeb, the leading Austrian horn player of his time. Leutgeb had been first horn of the court orchestra in Salzburg, where he became a friend of the Mozart family, and he later moved to Vienna, as Mozart himself did in 1781. The friendship lasted until the end of Mozart’s life, and it was full of teasing. Mozart peppered his horn manuscripts with jokes at Leutgeb’s expense, and he wrote the score of this concerto in four colours of ink (red, green, blue and black). This may have been a joke intended to rattle the soloist, although some scholars have suggested that the colours are a kind of code for dynamics and phrasing.

Mozart entered the work in his own catalogue in 1786 as “a horn concerto for Leutgeb”. Despite its number it was probably not the last of the four concertos, and the Berliner Philharmoniker’s introduction notes recent research suggesting that it may be the second in order of composition.

The horn of Mozart’s day was the natural horn, without valves. Players changed notes by adjusting their lips and by moving the hand inside the bell, so the chromatic lines in the first movement and the rapid passagework in the finale were a real test of Leutgeb’s skill. On the modern valve horn these concerts showcase the principal horn of the Berliner Philharmoniker, Yun Zeng, in his first solo appearance with the orchestra.

What to Listen For

I. Allegro maestoso. A broad, stately orchestral opening, after which the horn enters with a singing theme. Listen for the passages where the soloist moves by semitones: easy on a modern instrument, but on the natural horn a feat of hand-stopping.

II. Romance: Andante cantabile. Essentially a song without words, in which the horn’s warm middle register carries a gentle, lyrical melody.

III. Rondo: Allegro vivace. The best-known movement, a lively hunting-style finale in 6/8 time. Its bouncing main theme, built largely on the notes of the major chord that a natural horn plays most easily, keeps coming back between episodes, each time with a little more brilliance.