Violin Concerto no. 4 in D major, K. 218

Written in Salzburg in October 1775, the fourth of the five concertos Mozart produced there that year. Its opening theme resembles one in a D major violin concerto by Luigi Boccherini closely enough that the question of borrowing has been argued over for a century without resolution. The finale alternates a courtly rondo in minuet tempo with a fast contredanse, and includes a passage marked to imitate a musette, a rustic tune over a drone. Mozart's own cadenzas do not survive; those commonly played were written by Joseph Joachim and later violinists. Mozart was a capable violinist and led the archbishop’s orchestra himself; the five concertos appear to have been written in the first place for his own use.