This concerto is one of Leopold Mozart's very few creations—aside from his son—keeping his name alive more than two centuries after his death. Wolfgang was only six years old and not yet a threat to his father's reputation as a composer when Leopold produced this work in an unusual two-movement format. The opening Adagio, complete with harpsichord continuo, provides a stately, graceful introduction for string orchestra and horns, ending in a sighing cadence typical of Austro-Germanic music of the period, especially among composers of the Mannheim school. The trumpet takes up the theme, ornamenting it with trills and venturing high into its range—a brilliant, clarion display despite the measured tempo. Sonata-allegro form had not yet settled into place by 1762, so the development section is little more than a light variation on the theme. Things grow much livelier with the arrival of the Allegro moderato, whose cheerful main theme begins with a passage that may strike American listeners as a Handelian treatment of "The Farmer in the Dell." The theme breaks into a series of trumpet calls, all of which is repeated with some variation and is wrapped up within three minutes.

© James Reel, Rovi