Four-color autograph

Even if I always feel a little uncomfortable with such formulations: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart must have been the most creative mind in his time. And not only in terms of his musical works, but also with regard to his wit and other amusing mischief that only a playful, eternally young at heart wit could come up with. This applies beyond the bizarre Bäsle letters or the quirky Musical fun KV 522 also for the Horn Concerto KV 495, written in 1786.

It was written for Joseph Leutgeb, who was employed as a court huntsman horn player in Salzburg between 1763 and 1773 and was a friend of the Mozart family, who later moved to Vienna where he ran a cheese dairy just outside the city. Leutgeb must have been in Mozart's ear with his request for concerts, as the autograph of the first work KV 417 (1783) already contains a mocking comment: "Wolfgang Amadé Mozart has taken pity on Leitgeb, donkey, ox and fool."

We do not know exactly what Mozart gave the horn player for the Concerto K. 495. Apart from two posthumous prints in parts, only parts of the manuscript have survived, in which Mozart designed the middle Andante cantabile with four different colored inks: black, blue, red and green. Since then, people have been puzzling over whether this is just a colorful whim or a musical code. Even though the surviving parts of the autograph have been put online by the Morgan Library (New York): The Urtext edition published by Breitkopf makes the music text available for the first time in an elaborate color print for practical use - not only for fun, but also for further puzzling.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Concerto for Horn and Orchestra in E flat major KV 495, edited by Henrik Wiese, score PB 15131, € 19.90, Breitkopf & Härtel in cooperation with G. Henle, Wiesbaden