Giuseppe Ferlendis, the most celebrated member of a large Italian family filled with musicians, most of
them oboists, joined the archbishop’s orchestra in Salzburg in April 1777. At the time, local composer
Wolfgang Mozart, twenty-one years old, had just started writing the first of the many concertos—both for
himself and his friends—that would count among his greatest achievements. Only weeks after Ferlendis
moved to town, Mozart began to compose an oboe concerto for him. It isn’t clear how good a player
Ferlendis actually was; Mozart’s father Leopold called him a “favorite in the orchestra,” which might have
referred more to his personality than his musicianship, but Haydn, who heard him perform in London in
1795, said he was quite mediocre. In any event, Ferlendis inspired Mozart to write the only oboe concerto
of his career.