More on the Sinfonia Concertante in E-flat for winds, K. 297b

by Chris Schatz

A copyist's manuscript of a work titled "Concertante" and scored for oboe, clarinet, horn, and bassoon was discovered among the papers of Mozart biographer Otto Jahn in 1869 (Spitzer, 322). Without an autograph manuscript of the work, its authenticity as a work of Mozart's is subject to debate. There are allusions to a Sinfonia Concertante for flute, oboe, horn, and bassoon in the letters of Mozart, but no autograph score or copy of this piece is known to exist (Spitzer, 321). The question of whether the copyist's manuscript of the "Concertante" and the lost Sinfonia Concertante mentioned in Mozart's letters are the same work has remained unresolved by Mozart scholars.

The Sinfonia Concertante has been published and performed despite uncertainty about its origins. The difference between the orchestration of the Sinfonia Concertante of Mozart's letters--flute, oboe, horn and bassoon plus orchestra -- and that of the "Concertante"--oboe, clarinet, horn and bassoon plus orchestra--is not necessarily a sign of inauthenticity. The difference in orchestration can be considered as a sign that the two works are separate works, or else it may be the result of either a revision by Mozart or a liberty taken by a copyist. Mozart scholar Robert Lewin has recently made a "reconstruction" of the Sinfonia Concertante with the original orchestration suggested in Mozart's letters; Lewin's belief in the authenticity of the Sinfonia Concertante required that the printed manuscript be revised to conform to a previous conception of Mozart's style.