Trumpet Concerto (Mozart)

The Trumpet Concerto, K. 47c is a concerto for trumpet by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart that is apparently now lost. It is Mozart's only concerto written for a brass instrument other than his four horn concertos.

History and evidence for existence

The only evidence for the existence of the concerto is a letter written on 12 November 1768 by Mozart's father, Leopold, in Vienna to Lorenz Hagenauer back in Salzburg, the Mozarts' home. In the letter Leopold wrote that "the new church of Father Parhammer's orphanage will be consecrated on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. For this feast, Wolfgang has composed a solemn mass, an offertorium and a trumpet concerto for a boy...".^[1] The church involved was the Kirche Maria Geburt on the Rennweg, and the intended soloist may have been an orphan, Ignatz Schmatz. The consecration is known to have happened, as the Wienerisches Diarium reported on the service on 10 December 1768. However, as the trumpet concerto does not appear on Leopold's list of his son's works, it is uncertain whether it ever actually existed. The other compositions performed at the service are thought to be the Missa solemnis in C minor K. 139 and a lost offertory (previously thought to be the extant Benedictus sit deus K. 117).

Loss

If the concerto was indeed written, no copy is known to survive. The surviving manuscripts from the Kirche Maria Geburt, now in the Wiener Priesterseminar, show no trace of the work.^[2]

References

1. Karl Pfannhauser, “Zu Mozarts Kirchenwerken von 1768.” Mozart-Jahrbuch 1954. 150-68.
2. David Black, "Mozart and Musical Discipline at the Waisenhaus." Mozart-Jahrbuch 2006. 17-33.