Oboe Quartet in F K.370

Description

The Oboe Quartet in F major,K. 370/368b,was written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in early 1781. The quartet, originally arranged for oboe, violin,viola and cello is presented in this edition for Oboe with Pianoaccompaniment.

In 1780, Mozart was invited to Munich to visit Elector Karl Theodor, who had commissioned the opera Idomeneo for a carnival celebration. While in Munich, Mozart renewed an acquaintance with Friedrich Ramm, avirtuoso oboist in the Munich orchestra. It was for Ramm that Mozart composed the quartet in order to show off his virtuosity and the improvements that had been made to the oboe at that time. One way that this piece showed offtheinstrument was the use of the ‘high F’ above the staff, a note rarely played in any repertoire previously written for the oboe.

This piece is a work of chamber music, but it has elements that harken to other musicalgenres, and requires a fair amount of virtuosity. Because of its large amount of virtuosic playing on the part of the oboe and the large degree to which the strings simply accompany the oboist, it almost resembles a concerto, butwith only with four players instead of an entire orchestra. Despite this, there are also a number of places within the work that require ensemble playing, for example,the famous 13-bar passage in the finale in which the oboeplays in common time against a 6/8 accompaniment.