Horn Concerto Movement in E♭ major (K. 370b)
沃尔夫冈·阿马德乌斯·莫扎特
Mozart’s Horn Concerto Movement in E♭ major (K. 370b) is a surviving opening movement for horn and orchestra, left incomplete in Vienna in 1781, when the composer was 25. Only the beginning of the movement is preserved, suggesting a concerto project that Mozart did not finish.
What Is Known
Only the opening of a first movement in E♭ major for solo horn and orchestra survives, with no complete concerto extant under this number.[1] The fragment is generally dated to Vienna in 1781—Mozart’s first year as a freelance composer in the city—at a moment when he was rapidly absorbing Viennese orchestral style and writing more “public” instrumental music alongside opera and chamber works.[1]
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Modern performing materials typically treat K. 370b as a Konzertsatz (concerto movement) and supply a realizable score from the surviving pages; one widely used edition was prepared by Robert D. Levin.[2]
Musical Content
What remains reads like the start of a classical concerto first movement (Allegro), in Mozart’s favored horn key of E♭ major: a bright, open sonority that suits the instrument’s natural harmonic series. The surviving passage sets the solo horn in a confident, outward-facing role against orchestral strings and winds, with the solo line shaped around arpeggiated calls and fanfare-like figures typical of late-18th-century horn writing. As an early Viennese fragment, it points toward the more expansive, theatrically paced horn concertos of Mozart’s later 1780s—while stopping short, tantalizingly, before any full exposition can unfold.[1]
[1] IMSLP — work page for Horn Concerto in E-flat major, K. 370b (notes that only the opening of the first movement is known; general reference page).
[2] Breitkopf & Härtel (US) — publication page for Mozart: Horn Concerto in E-flat major K. 370b and Rondo, K. 371 (edition info; Robert D. Levin).