Variations on a Theme of Mozart for Large Orchestra

The Variations on a Theme of Mozart for Large Orchestra was composed in 1955, Josip Mandić being contractually bound to deliver it by February 26, 1956; according to Mandić’s own words, quoted by his brother Ante Mandić in a letter to their relative Vladimir Pertot of January 4, 1956, the work was to have been performed by the Czech Philharmonic in 1956, the Mozart year. It is not known why this did not happen; to this day the work has not been played. The theme of the Variations is actually the whole of the second movement of Mozart’s Divertimento for 2 Oboes, 2 Bassoons and 2 Horns, no. 14, KV 270 in B-flat major of 1777. Although in terms of harmonic language close to the Romantic idiom and only occasionally indicating the use of any very original approaches (related to the folk music of Istria), from the viewpoint of craftsmanship, the Variations is a very successful work. It is conceived in such a way as to lead from simpler to more complex, in which the initial theme is increasingly difficult to spot. It is a certainty that in this work Mandić was trying to revive the spirit of Mozart’s music, to come up very close to him, in which he was completely successful. The quintessence of the divertimento is preserved – that musical form that like some imaginary pot contains above all some entertaining, witty and charming substance, in this case at a very high level of art, appropriate to Mandić’s tribute to the Austrian genius. Mandić’s last work, the Variations is a confirmation of the long way he had come in the perfection of composerly skills and disciplines, of the uncommon talent and the artistic level reached by a man to whom music was never a professional calling, although in the tragic days towards the end of his life he did try, unsuccessfully, to make it such.