Mozart's Bassoon Concerto in B flat major K.191 was completed in Salzburg on 4 June 1774, when the composer was only 18 years old. He is believed to have composed several other concertos for bassoon but this is the only one to have survived. It is contemporary with his first Piano Concerto and first Violin Concerto, composed in the mid-1770s, and is the first of his woodwind concertos and Mozart had already composed 30 symphonies, 12 string quartets and several operas by this time. The Mozart family had recently returned from one of their many visits to Italy and were newly settled at the Hannibal-Platz in Salzburg in 1772 and two years before, Prince-Archbishop Colleredo confirmed Mozart's position as Konzertmeister.For many years the Bassoon Concerto was believed to have been composed for the amateur bassoonist and wealthy patron Baron Thaddäus von Dürnitz but it was more likely to have been composed for Heinrich Schulz or Melchior Sandmayr, bassoonists at the Salzburg court.
