CONCERTO in Bb major K191

The autograph score to this concerto is lost but it is known to have been written in Salzburg in 1774 and is the first wind concerto that Mozart composed. The only source available is a set of printed parts published by André in about 1790 with a second impression in 1805. It shows the eighteen year old Mozart moulding the music to achieve a balanced interplay between soloist and orchestra - a principle which was worked out to perfection in his later piano concertos. The fairly direct writing of the solo part of the Rondo finale suggests that Mozart might have had a talented amateur bassoonist in mind and that the dedicatee could have been Baron von Dürniz. He owned seventy-four works by Mozart, but the score to this concerto was not one of them.

The bassoon part has been edited by Graham Sheen who is the long serving Principal Bassoon of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields. He also performs as soloist and chamber musician and has over fifty published compositions and arrangements to his name. He has been Professor of Bassoon at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama since 1979.

After working extensively with the BBC Symphony Orchestra for several of their Proms Seasons, John Alley joined the London Symphony Orchestra as Principal Keyboard Player in 1994. He has accompanied soloists in this concerto many times for rehearsals or auditions, playing from a wide selection of orchestra to keyboard reductions, none of which were created with the accompanist in mind. Hence this version which John Alley has prepared by going back to the full score and making a reduction which is "…. more readily accessible to the pianist who is expected to represent the orchestra, often at very short notice."

• Andante ma Adagio
• Rondo - Tempo di Menuetto

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