Key figures: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Anna Maria Mozart (mother), Leopold Mozart (father), Aloysia Weber, Ferdinand De Jean, Archbishop Hieronymus Colloredo
Summary
The year 1777 marked a decisive turning point in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s life and artistic development. At the start of the year, the 21-year-old Mozart completed the Piano Concerto No. 9 in E-flat major, K. 271 (the “Jenamy” Concerto), a work that announced his full maturity as a composer. But 1777 is remembered primarily as the year Mozart broke free from the Salzburg court system that had constrained him since childhood.
In August 1777, Mozart petitioned Archbishop Hieronymus Colloredo for release from his court position. Colloredo dismissed Mozart but refused to release Mozart’s father Leopold (who remained in Salzburg serving the Archbishop). Undeterred, Mozart departed on September 23, 1777, with only his mother Anna Maria as companion—a radical departure from the family concert tours of his youth. The tour sequence was ambitious: Munich (late September–early October), Augsburg (October 11), and Mannheim (October 30 onward, remaining through year-end).
In Munich, Mozart sought patronage from the Bavarian court; none materialized. In Augsburg he reconnected with his extended family and performed at the court of the Prince-Bishop. In Mannheim he encountered one of Europe’s most celebrated orchestras and met the wealthy Dutch merchant and amateur flutist Ferdinand De Jean, who commissioned Mozart for three flute concertos and two quartets for 200 gulden. On December 25, 1777—Christmas Day—Mozart completed the Flute Quartet No. 1 in D major, K. 285, in Mannheim. The tour also led him to meet the young soprano Aloysia Weber, with whom he fell in love; this romantic entanglement caused considerable tension with his father.
The “Jenamy” Concerto (K. 271)
Completed in January 1777 in Salzburg, Piano Concerto No. 9 in E-flat major, K. 271 was written for the French pianist Victoire Jenamy (formerly misidentified as “Jeunehomme”), who was visiting Salzburg. The work stands apart from Mozart’s earlier concertos in its unprecedented structural innovations: the piano enters in bar two—interrupting the opening orchestral phrase—rather than waiting for the customary orchestral exposition. The slow movement (Andantino in C minor) deploys operatic recitative in the piano part, an almost unheard-of gesture in 1777 concerto writing. The finale includes an extended minuet episode at its center. At roughly 30 minutes, K. 271 is longer and more technically demanding than anything Mozart had previously written for the keyboard, and scholars consistently place it among the first great solo piano concertos in the Western canon.
The Mannheim School and Its Influence
Mozart’s October–December 1777 residence in Mannheim introduced him to the Mannheim court orchestra under its longtime music director Christian Cannabich (1731–1798), then considered the finest ensemble in Europe. The Mannheim orchestra was famous for two innovations: the crescendo (a coordinated gradual increase in volume across the full orchestra, then a novelty) and the use of wind instruments—clarinets especially—as expressive solo voices rather than merely harmonic fillers. Mozart heard these techniques nightly and wrote enthusiastically to his father: “The orchestra is excellent and very strong. On either side there are ten or eleven violins, four violas, two oboes, two flutes, two clarinets, two horns, four violoncellos, four bassoons, four double basses, trumpets and drums.” The clarinet writing in his later symphonies and operas—and especially in the Clarinet Concerto K. 622 (1791)—reflects Mannheim’s influence directly. Mozart also composed six piano sonatas (K. 279–284) partly to demonstrate his abilities to Mannheim patrons, and studied counterpoint intensively there.
Ferdinand De Jean and the Flute Works
Ferdinand De Jean (1731–1797), a Dutch surgeon and East India Company officer turned amateur flutist, commissioned Mozart for three flute concertos and two flute quartets—a fee of 200 gulden. Mozart completed only two concertos (K. 313 and K. 314, the latter an adaptation from an oboe concerto) and four quartets (K. 285, K. 285a, K. Anh. 171/285b, K. 298). He received 96 gulden—less than the agreed amount—because he did not deliver the full set. Mozart’s letters suggest he found the flute uninspiring (“you know I become quite powerless whenever I am obliged to write for an instrument which I cannot bear”), but the works he did complete—especially K. 285 and the G-major Concerto K. 313—remain staples of the modern flute repertoire.
The Weber Family
In Mannheim, Mozart’s landlord Fridolin Weber introduced him to his daughter Aloysia (c. 1760–1839), a gifted soprano. Mozart fell deeply in love and proposed a scheme to his father: abandon the court-patronage search and tour Italy with Aloysia, presenting her in opera houses. Leopold firmly refused and ordered Mozart to Paris. The relationship with Aloysia would eventually collapse when she rejected Mozart on his return journey in January 1779. She went on to a distinguished operatic career, later creating the role of Mme. Herz in Mozart’s own Der Schauspieldirektor (1786). Mozart later married her younger sister Constanze Weber in 1782—making Aloysia his sister-in-law.
Significance
The 1777 tour marks the end of Mozart’s childhood and the beginning of his authentic independence, even though the patronage quest ultimately failed. His break from Salzburg’s feudal court structure—though not yet permanent—established a template he would follow: seeking employment as a freelance composer and performer on the open market. Musically, the exposure to the Mannheim orchestra profoundly influenced Mozart’s symphonic and chamber idiom, particularly his writing for winds and clarinets in later years.
K. 271 and the flute works of 1777 show Mozart absorbing and synthesizing diverse European styles: Italian lyricism, French elegance, German structural sophistication. The 1777 events represent both a personal transformation (independence from paternal and institutional control) and an artistic one (the completion of Mozart’s “European education” and the consolidation of his mature voice). The romantic tension with Aloysia Weber and the failed patronage bids foreshadowed the struggles he would face in Vienna and ultimately his permanent break with Salzburg in 1781.