Mozart Duos for Vln & Vla KV423/424 BA4

There is a remarkable story told by Franz Joseph Otter and Georg Johann Schinn, two early biographers of Michael Haydn (17371806), of the reason for the composition of the two duets for violin and viola K.423 and 424 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. According to this, Michael Haydn had been commissioned by the Archbishop of Salzburg to write a series of duets for violin and viola which he was unable to deliver, due to illness, at the appointed time. The Archbishop, either because he did not know of Haydns illness or through the arbitrariness of a despotic nature, threatened to withhold Haydns fee.

Mozart, who was visiting his father in Salzburg at the time (JulyNovember 1783), heard of Haydns difficult position and, it is said, wrote the duets for Haydn which were then handed over as if composed by the
latter. Haydn is said to have preserved the original manuscript of the two works als ein Heiligthum (as
a sacred relic) and thus honoured Mozarts immortal memory forever.

With these two duets, his only works for this instrumentation, Mozart continued the tradition of a type of
piece which in its long history had shown widely differing characteristics. Instructional features, such
as the use of counterpoint and etude-like writing, belong to it as much as great virtuosity. Mozart has happily brought together in these two works all these elements and raised them to uncommon heights.

- Urtext of the New Mozart Edition