Composed: Paris, 1778.

The one regret Mozart might have had about composing the Concerto for Flute and Harp was that he was never paid for it.  He composed the Concerto for Duc Adrien-Louis de Guines (1735-1806), who was a fine flautist, and his daughter, who was a brilliant harpist.  About the daughter Mozart wrote to his father Leopold: “I think I told you in my last letter that the Duc de Guines, whose daughter is my pupil in composition, plays the flute extremely well, and that she plays the harp magnifique.  She has a great deal of talent and even genius, and in particular a marvelous memory, so that she can play all her pieces, actually about two hundred, by heart.”  That same year, 1778, the death of Mozart’s mother would return him to Salzburg.  In 1781, Mozart would leave Salzburg for Vienna, which would be his primary residence for the next ten years until his death in 1791.
    There is hardly an orchestral timbre that brings as much refreshment to the ear as the brilliant consonance of flute and harp that launches the first movement.   Sweetness and light infuse the music from start to finish.  Mozart’s inevitable flair for the dramatic intrudes upon the development section of the first movement and a reprise of the rondo theme in the last.  Without these turns to the minor and to dissonance, the unrelieved sunny character of the bulk of the composition might grow nearly unbearable.
    This Concerto was composed for the home rather than the concert stage.  Understandably, there are no duo concertos for this combination by composers who made their careers writing principally for virtuosos of the concert stage.  The harp itself had not yet won its place as a standard instrument in the symphony orchestra.  Technical improvements in the design of the instrument and the Symphonie Fantastique (1830), which features the harp, led to its more frequent use as an orchestral instrument.  Yet no later major composer had the inspiration or incentive to write a concerto for flute and harp like Mozart’s.  If only Mozart had been paid …