Mozart: Violin Concertos Nos. 3, 4 and 5

Despite the limitations of life in his Salzburg birthplace – and the patronage of a new and somewhat unsympathetic Prince-Archbishop – opportunities nevertheless presented themselves to Mozart. Following a commission for Il re pastore in 1775, he wrote a sequence of violin concertos that reveal his own performer’s understanding of the instrument. The concertos are suffused with elegance, vivacity and wit. Mozart’s mastery of solo violin cantilena is matched by prodigious melodic invention and moments of exotic colour, such as the Turkish episode in the Rondeau finale of K. 219.