Easy to Play, Simply Transmitted

Mozart excitedly reported to his father that the Comte de Guines played the flute “incomparably,” while his daughter was “magnifique” at the harp. He apparently had no reservations about writing a double concerto for this unusual scoring in Paris in 1778 – and even though he had just admitted to his father that he “couldn’t stand” the flute. It is surprising, then, that Mozart produced a singular, fairly easily performable work. Could it be that he exaggerated their technical abilities for some reason or other when he described his patrons to his father? The source situation is clear: An autograph has survived which is definitive in every respect, and can be incontestably included in a modern Urtext edition, down to the distinction between staccato dots and dashes.