A New Mozart Completion

A fragment of an Oboe Concerto by Mozart has been completed by William Drabkin, Emeritus Professor of Music, and published by the Music Haven (London) in full score and, very recently, in an arrangement for oboe and piano. Mozart’s manuscript, in the Fitzwilliam Library, Cambridge, comprises about 70 bars of a first movement in F major, including the complete opening orchestral ritornello. It dates from 1778, when the composer was 22 years old and nearing the end of his services as a court musician in Salzburg. The surviving material shows a more sophisticated approach to the writing of concertos than one finds in the flute and oboe concertos of the previous year; in many respects it anticipates Mozart’s achievements in the genre during the following decade.

Drabkin’s completion has been performed in Southampton, Vienna and Taipei. The full score and the oboe-piano arrangement are both available from the publishers, Music Haven (London): http://www.musichaven.co.uk