Mozart - Horn Concerto No. 4 in E Flat

Mozart's Horn Concertos are not only at the heart of his pieces, they're at the heart of his

Blessed are the cheese-makers, for they shall have Mozart horn concertos. At least, if your name was Leutgeb. After a good run as Europe’s most sought-after horn player – Joseph Haydn, Hoffman, Dittersdorf and Michael Haydn all wrote works for him – Joseph Leutgeb settled in Vienna where he inherited a cheese shop and would have been content to hang up his mouthpiece. Would have, that is, were it not for the presence in Vienna of Mozart, who duly engaged the clearly rather talented chap to play his brand new concertos.

This one, the fourth, comes with a multicoloured score – and that’s no joke. It’s thought Mozart was either having a little fun with Leutgeb by writing the score in red, green, blue and black, or concealing some sort of Da Vinci code. Before you devote years of your life to the answer, it was almost certainly the former

 Illustration: Mark Millington