Eighteenth-Century Cadenza

The cadenza is an ornamental solo passage written in score or improvised by the soloist with a free rhythmic style and virtuously performance. In the 18th century, the concerto cadenza established that the soloist improvises the cadenza in the first movement before the last orchestral ritornello. A 6/4 orchestral chord introduces the cadenza, and for its culmination, the soloist indicates the close of the cadenza with a trill over a dominant chord. The example is a fragment of the end of the cadenza from the Flute Concerto No.1 in G (K. 313) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.