Kraus, Joseph Martin (1756-1792)

The Viola Concerto in C major is the closest to the violin concerto in the same key though its opening flourish is closely related to the E-flat major viola concerto. This is perhaps the least complicated of the three rediscovered viola concertos, and yet it retains a high degree of virtuosity and the same sort of thematic twists and turns as the others. Its close compositional technical content makes it likely that it was the first of these composed, probably not long after the violin concerto in 1777. Like the other two concertos, it represents the highpoint of concertante writing for this middle-range instrument.