I. Allegro aperto II. Andante ma non troppo III. Allegro

The circumstances surrounding the composition of Mozart’s oboe concerto is shrouded in a degree of mystery. Mozart arrived in Mannheim in October 1777, where probably the finest orchestra in the world was then stationed. (Besides this, Mozart was touched by exceptionally important artistic and emotional impressions as well). In a letter from November 1777, Mozart told his father about an oboe concerto: “Every day I am with the Cannabiches … there were some people from the orchestra there … the oboe player, whose name I don’t know, actually plays well, and has a fine and attractive tone. I have given him my oboe concerto, and the Cannabiches will copy it.”
In a letter from February 14th 1778, Mozart mentions two flute concertos, which he wrote to a commission from the well to do Dutch artistic patron, De Jean. These were the First in G major (K. 313) and the second in D major, which now bears the Köchel number 314. In a later letter still, from October 1778, Mozart mentions to his father a flute concerto written then, so it is possible that this was simply a transcription for De Jean of the earlier oboe concerto. Of the 1777 oboe concerto, we know that it was written in Salzburg for the oboist Gisuseppe Ferlendi from Brescia. In the Köchel catalogue this is known as 271k but has been lost.
An interesting aspect of the oboe/flute concerto, which uses a fairly conventional musical language but is otherwise extremely well formed, is that its Rondo contains a theme we can hear in his Seraglio opera where Blonde sings this exact same melody. We don’t know how conscious this borrowing was, since Mozart’s art is an intimate web of similar thematic interrelations.