A Mozart violin concerto in Frankfurt; and Mozart in Rome

Miguel Arango Calle analyzes an announcement of a Mozart violin concerto played as an entr’acte during a performance by the theatrical company of Gustav Friedrich Wilhelm Großmann in Frankfurt on 16 September 1784. This is currently the only known performance of a Mozart violin concerto by someone outside of the composer’s circle during his lifetime.

Miguel considers the context of Großmann’s entr’actes at the time; the identities of the announced performers, Jakobi and Berner, and their potential roles in the performance; the identity of the piece they performed; and the identity of the “Mademoiselle Schroth” who sang an aria by Sacchini during the same entr’acte.

Miguel is a doctoral candidate in musicology at Indiana University. The working title of his dissertation is “Opera for the Eyes: Magic Theater at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century.” He is currently a Visiting Instructor for the First-Year Seminar Program at Oberlin College in Ohio.

Dexter Edge writes about a one-sentence report in Notizie del Mondo in April 1770 regarding Mozart’s positive reception in Rome during his first visit to the city.

Added a link to a reprinting in the Altonaischer Mercurius of the “Bamberg” translation of the article on Mozart that was first printed in French in L’Avantcoureur on 5 Mar 1764. Corresponding updates have been made to the commentary text. Added a link to the digitized Halle exemplar of the Bamberg version in the Historisch-Moralische Belustigungen des Geistes, with added commentary on this printing’s context. We have also updated links to digitized sources in the ÖNB, as these have recently changed.

Updated commentary to take into account changes to the entry for 5 Mar 1764.

Added a link to a report on 26 Mar 1771 in the Hamburger Relations-Courier regarding Mozart’s concert in Venice. This item was published one day earlier than the same report in the Staats- und Gelehrten Zeitung des Hamburgischen unpartheyischen Correspondenten (Neue Folge, 18)

Added a reference to a performance by the Davies sisters at a concert in Milan on 8 Nov 1771 organized by Archduke Ferdinand.

Updated the cross-reference to the Davies sisters to link to our entry for 2 Mar 1771.

Deleted references to Righini as the composer of the Piramo e Tisbe performed at Prince Liechtenstein’s on 21 Mar 1784. The setting was probably Rauzzini’s.

Added a performance of Rauzzini’s cantata Piramo e Tisbe on 23 Feb 1782 to the table of known performances in Prince Auersperg’s theater.