Allegro
Adagio
Rondo

Mozart’s Paris visit in 1778 was essentially a job-hunting exercise, and an opportunity to find new patrons and supporters. It wasn’t a success, partly because Paris was not especially enthusiastic about his music at the time. Immediately before that trip, he had been in Mannheim where he met a Dutch surgeon and amateur flautist, Ferdinand De Jean, who commissioned some new pieces from him. The Flute Quartet in D K285, completed on Christmas Day 1777, is a beautifully crafted and often sparkling work: whatever Mozart’s well-known reservations about the flute, they certainly aren’t reflected in the quality of the music he composed here.

Nigel Simeone © 2012