Wolfgang Amadé Mozart - The Compleat Mozart (Neal Zaslaw)
Instrumental music
Solo Keyboard Music
Background and overview
Pianists who love Mozart’s music spend endless hours trying to divine the secrets of making it sound as beautiful coming from their instruments as it sounds to them in their imagination. There is no consensus about how Mozart’s music should be played. Modern ideas about his piano music range from lushly romantic approaches to austerely restrained ones, from commitment to large modern Steinways to preference for the smaller, leaner pianos of Mozart’s time.
What wouldn’t we give to be able to hear how Mozart played? If only one could visit him in heaven, or bring him back to life, or find a time machine to travel to the 1780s, or discover lost tape recordings made at the time by a prescient inventor. In the absence of these improbable events, however, all we have to fall back on are same eyewitness accounts of his playing. These are edifyingly enthusiastic but disappointingly short on telling details:
March 22, 1783: ... the two new concertos and additional fantasies which Mr. Mozart played on the fortepiano were received with the loudest applause. ... the entire audience accorded him such unanimous applause as has never been heard of here [in Vienna].
April 1, 1784: I have heard Mozart, ... great and original in his compositions, and a master when seated at the keyboard. His concerto on the fortepiano, how excellent that was! And his improvisations, what a wealth of ideas! what variety! what contrasts in passionate sounds! One is washed away unresistingly on the stream of one’s own emotions.
January 19, 1787: By general request [Mozart] then performed on the fortepiano at a great concert in the opera house [in Prague]. Never had the theater been so full of people as it was on this occasion; never had there been greater or more unanimous delight that his divine playing aroused. Indeed, we did not know what to admire more – the extraordinary composition, or the extraordinary playing; both together made a total impression on our souls that could only be compared to sweet enchantment! But at the end of the concert, when Mozart extemporized alone for more than half an hour at the fortepiano, raising our delight to the highest degree, our enchantment dissolved into loud, overwhelming applause. And indeed, this extemporization exceeded anything normally understood by fortepiano playing, as the highest excellence in the art of composition was combined with the most perfect accomplishment in execution.
January 29, 1787: ... Mozart is the most skillful and best keyboard scholar I have ever heard. ...
August 24, 1788: ... to Kapellmeister Mozart’s. There I had the happiest hour of music that has ever fallen to my lot. This small man and great master twice extemporized on a pedal fortepiano, so wonderfully – so wonderfully that I quite lost myself! He intertwined the most difficult passages with the most lovely themes. ... His pedal in the second improvisation in particular made the most agreeable impression. [I was] happy and quite overcome at having heard Mozart.
November 12, 1788:
When Mozart masterly music plays,
And gathers undivided praise,
The choir of Muses stays to hear,
Apollo is himself all ear.
April 14, 1789: ... his agility on the harpsichord and on the fortepiano is quite inexpressible – and to this is added an extraordinary ability to read at sight, which truly borders on the incredible – for he himself is hardly able to play a thing better after practice than he does the very first time. On the organ too he showed his great skill in the strict style.
March 4, 1791: Kapellmeister Mozart played a concerto on the fortepiano, and everyone admired his art, in composition as well as in performance. ...
Brilliance, fluency, lyricism, clarity, and extraordinary communicative powers – Mozart seemed to have had them all. Small wonder he was considered the finest pianist of his generation.
N.Z.
Sonatas and sonata movements
Background and overview
Given that Mozart’s training and career were so closely linked to the keyboard, it seems surprising that the earliest work in this section is the Sonata in C major, K. 279, which dates from 1775. Why don’t we have any solo keyboard sonatas from Mozart’s decade of active composing leading up to 1775? There are two answers to this question: in the 1760s and 1770s keyboard sonatas with violin accompaniment were all the rage, and Mozart published sixteen of these as his Opp. 1-4 (K. 6-15 and 26-31). Then it seems that there probably were some earlier solo sonatas, which have been lost.
Five such works are documented. Three of them were in the possession of Mozart’s sister Nannerl until the beginning of the nineteenth century, when she sent them to the Leipzig music publishers Breitkopf & Härtel. The latter never published them and eventually they were irretrievably lost. All that survives of them are the opening measures of the first movement of each sonata, as recorded in a catalogue kept by Breitkopf & Härtel. These “incipits” may be seen in the Köchel Catalogue, listed under the arbitrarily assigned numbers K. 33d-f. Nannerl described these as “among my brother’s first compositions”. The same Breitkopf & Härtel catalogue shows the incipit of a fourth lost sonata in an apparently similar style, which is now known as K. 33g.
Knowledge of a fifth sonata comes to us from quite a different source. When Mozart and his father were in Verona in January 1770, the nearly fourteen-year-old Mozart’s portrait was painted by Saverio dalla Rosa. Mozart is shown seated at the keyboard and on the music desk there is a sonata, which is so clearly painted that one can transcribe the first thirty-four measures of a movement marked Molto Allegro. Although we cannot be certain that this was a work by Mozart, the presumption that it is is a reasonable one. This fragment will be found in the Köchel Catalogue as K. 72a.
N.Z.
K. 279 Piano Sonata in C major, No. 1 (K6 189f)
Origin: Munich, between January 14 and March 6, 1775
Movements: Allegro. Andante. Allegro.
In 1774 Mozart received an opera commission from Maximilian III Joseph, Elector of Bavaria for the 1775 carnival season. Composing La finta giardiniera, K. 196, however, also meant traveling to Munich to supervise its production. After directing the successful premier Mozart lingered several months in Munich, keeping busy by composing several divertimentos for winds and a set of six piano sonatas (K. 279-284), the first of his works in that genre to have come down to us. As with his later sonatas (as well as his piano concertos) these were repertoire pieces designed to display his gifts as a composer and performer. He played them not only in Munich but during his later visits to Augsburg, Mannheim, and Paris.
As a group, these first sonatas show Mozart experimenting to some extent, testing both the form and the instrument to find his authentic voice. They show an extraordinary range of styles, even from movement to movement within a single work, and one can rarely guess what the next sonata will be like by studying its predecessor.
Reflecting Mozart’s move from harpsichord to piano, this first sonata clearly spans both instruments: the dynamic changes, such as loud to soft, belong to the piano, while the strummed chords and light-fingered, tart staccatos are distinct remnants of harpsichord style.
The opening Allegro is in sonata form. The Andante mirrors the understated simplicity characteristic of the galant style prevalent in Mozart’s youth. The influence of Italian melody is palpable in this movement. The lively closing Allegro crowns the sonata. It, too, is in sonata form.
C.S.
K. 280 Piano Sonata in F major, No. 2 (K6 189c)
Origin: Munich, between January 14 and March 6, 1775
Movements: Allegro assai. Adagio. Presto.
The second sonata opens the door to a new era. Mozart writes with the piano plainly in mind – and in doing so he evidently turns to Joseph Haydn for guidance: this work is modeled after a sonata, also in F major, that Haydn composed in 1773 and published as Op. 13, No. 3.
Clarity, restraint, and an air of nobility characterize the opening Allegro as it strides confidently along in classic minuet rhythm.
In the Adagio Mozart makes such effective use of a minor key that one critic felt impelled to ask: “Has anyone ever heard a more soul-stirring lament by an eighteen-year old?”
All traces of sadness vanish in the ebullient Presto. In 3/8 time, its rhythm ties back to the earlier movements and makes this Mozart’s only sonata in triple time from start to finish.
C.S.
K. 281 Piano Sonata in B flat major, No. 3 (K6 189e)
Origin: Munich, between January 14 and March 6, 1775
Movements: Allegro. Andante amoroso. Rondeau: Allegro.
Haydn’s influence continues in the third sonata. Alfred Einstein even goes so far as to say that “the first two movements seem more like Haydn than Haydn himself”. There is still much Mozart to be heard in these movements, however – albeit a Mozart who is still maturing and testing out his efforts in sophisticated Munich by adhering to the style of a recognized composer. Haydn was forty-two at the time, Mozart just nineteen.
In the Allegro, Haydn’s hand shows most plainly in the clarity of its form, the mosaic of small melodic thoughts, often breaking into triplet patterns, and in the well-contrived development section.
In sonata form, the Andante amoroso opens with a limpid introduction. If there is anything “amorous” about this Andante, it is couched in the language of light flirtation and gallantry.
From this early Haydnesque style, Mozart leaps years ahead in the masterly closing Allegro. Using fashionable French, Mozart calls it a “rondeau”, a form that was to become a favorite in both his sonatas and piano concertos.
C.S.
K. 282 Piano Sonata in E flat major, No. 4 (K6 189g)
Origin: Munich, between January 14 and March 6, 1775
Movements: Adagio. Menuetto I / Menuetto II. Allegro.
If these first sonatas show Mozart feeling his way – experimenting, as it were – then the fourth sonata is the least conventional of all, the only one, except for K. 331, that begins with a movement in slow tempo instead of an allegro.
In this opening Adagio Mozart has written a youthful essay on melodymaking. It begins with a rather melancholy introductory idea that also brings the movement to a close. The second movement is the standard Minuet with Trio. The procedure here is typically Classical: Minuet I has a slightly percussive, detached melodic line, and Minuet II provides a more lyrical and flowing contrast before the first Minuet returns.
The sonata ends with a dashing Allegro, as clear and sparkling as cut crystal. All is worked out in miniature, including a tiny development section.
C.S.
K. 283 Piano Sonata in G major, No. 5 (K6 189h)
Origin: Munich, between January 14 and March 6, 1775
Movements: Allegro. Andante. Presto.
No questions of influence or sequence trouble the G major Sonata, the fifth of the six sonatas written in the first quarter of 1775. It has long been a favorite with pianists. Bright Italian sunshine and tunefulness suffuse its every measure, as at the start of the Allegro, where the airy principal theme suggests both a minuet and a galant duo with voice replying to voice. The Andante continues in a more thoughtful but still happy vein.
In 3/8 time, the closing Presto moves like a gossamer whirlwind, suggesting both a dance and a scherzo. Yet throughout the insubstantial fabric, Mozart has woven solid craftsmanship: form, balance, and brief flashes of counterpoint.
C.S.
K. 284 Piano Sonata in D major, “Dürnitz”, No. 6 (K6 205b)
Origin: Munich, between January 14 and March 6, 1775
Movements: Allegro. Rondeau en Polonaise [Andante]. Thema con dodieci variazioni.
Mozart composed this work, the last of his six Munich sonatas, for a well-known music patron, Baron Thaddäus von Dürnitz. Alfred Einstein speculates that “Mozart must have had a personal or musical experience that suddenly lifted him to a new and higher level”. We cannot even guess what that experience might have been or what took place deep within his creative psyche, but its results are plain: assurance, a style that utilizes all the piano’s resources and, again, an uncommon succession of movements.
He made two attempts at composing the opening Allegro. The first, similar in manner to the foregoing sonatas, breaks off after seventy-one measures. Then, using some of the same thematic material, he began afresh, in a more brilliant style, and brought the movement to a conclusion. The whole movement, including the harmonically pungent development, seems to be a virile symphonic overture scored for piano. Mozart calls the Andante that follows a “Polonaise en Rondeau”. The rondo refrain takes on new and progressively richer figuration each time it returns, creating a kind of hybrid variation-rondo. Having hit upon the idea of variations, Mozart uses it for the extended Finale – a movement more than twice as long as the first two combined and longer than some complete sonatas.
This sonata evidently pleased Mozart, since he did not hesitate to publish it fully a decade later – in 1784, when he was the musical darling of Vienna – in a triple publication that included the piano sonata, K. 333, and the violin sonata, K. 454. (The first five Munich sonatas remained in manuscript until eight years after his death.)
C.S.
K. 309 Piano Sonata in C major, No. 7 (K6 284b)
Origin: Mannheim, between October 22 and November 13, 1777
Movements: Allegro con spirito. Andante un poco adagio. Rondeau: Allegretto grazioso.
After stretching out his Munich stay as long as he dared, Mozart returned to Salzburg, where he remained for two and a half more years providing music for Archbishop Colloredo and his court. Inevitably, though, he realized that Salzburg held no future for him. It was time to go job hunting and, with his mother along as combined chaperone and cashier, he departed on September 23, 1777, on a fateful journey to Paris that was to hold bitter disappointments.
This trip, to Munich, Augsburg, Mannheim, Paris, and back to Salzburg, lasted more than a year and produced three piano sonatas (K. 309, 311, and 310). At Mannheim, Mozart met Christian Cannabich, director of the famed court orchestra. “I am with Cannabich every day”, he wrote to Leopold. “He has a daughter who plays the keyboard quite nicely and in order to make a real friend of him, I am now working on a sonata for her, which is almost finished, save for the Rondo.” Four days later, on November 8, 1777, the Rondo was finished, the sonata for fifteen-year-old Mlle. Rosa Cannabich complete. Along with sonatas K. 311 and 310, it was published in Paris the following year.
The Allegro opens boldly with a unison motif that acts as a motto for this lucid sonata-form movement. Mozart included a local musical specialty for his hosts: the bright ascending staccatos in the transition to the second theme, known as the “Mannheim rocket”.
Asked what he was thinking while composing the Andante un poco Adagio, Mozart replied: “I would make it fit closely the character of Mlle Rosa. ... She is exactly like the Andante.” The Rondo perfectly matches the graciousness of its tempo marking. It is brilliant yet not taxing, ideally tailored to display Rosa’s abilities. Her playing of the sonata delighted the twenty-one-year-old composer.
C.S.
K. 311 Piano Sonata in D major, No. 9 (K6 284c)
Origin: Mannheim, mid-December 1777
Movements: Allegro con spirito. Andante con espressione. Rondeau: Allegro.
The D major Sonata, K. 311, was written during Mozart’s stay in Mannheim or, quite possibly, even earlier in Munich, where he had met a Josepha Freysinger, daughter of one of his father’s friends, and promised her a sonata. This may be that sonata.
German writer Hans Dennerlein calls the Allegro con spirito “a fire-work of good spirits, bustling and crackling with life”. Yet beneath this glittering surface lies a deeper life. Mozart is still reshaping the sonata form to suit his inspiration. Themes are connected: the main subject’s rising staccato motif becomes a descending legato melody in the lyric second theme. The little descending motive at the exposition’s close seems to be an afterthought, but becomes the only material dealt with in the development. This trick became a hallmark of Mozart’s mature style and shows up again in the piano sonatas K. 545 and K. 576, as well as in many other works.
The form of the Andante con espressione defies strict classification but comes closest to what the Germans call bar form, which consists of two strophes – each one here opening and closing with a version of the refrain and followed by a shorter “after-song”. But because of the frequent return to the opening melody, simple or decorated, one tends to hear the movement as a rondo in a slow tempo.
The Allegro Finale includes the roominess and élan characteristic of the Rondo in K. 309, along with more substantial musical ideas, all presented in a lilting 6/8 rhythm that anticipates the concerto finales. The Finale even includes a brief cadenza to enhance the concerto-like flavor.
C.S.
K. 310 Piano Sonata in A minor, No. 8 (K6 300d)
Origin: Paris, between March 23 and July 20, 1778
Movements: Allegro maestoso. Andante cantabile con espressione. Presto.
Compositions in minor keys are rare in Mozart’s works: only two each among the piano sonatas, concertos, and symphonies, just one each among the mature string quintets, quartets, and violin sonatas – barely a dozen pieces out of scores of instrumental compositions. This sonata is one such work. It moves us ahead to Paris, where Mozart arrived toward the end of March 1778 for a six-month stay. While in Paris (no one knows just when) he composed the A minor Sonata and a companion work, the Violin Sonata in E minor, K. 304. Among the several explanations that have been suggested, the most prevalent perhaps is that the death of Mozart’s mother on July 3, 1778, after a short, unforeseen illness, gave rise to a deep sense of loss that is reflected in these sonatas. Or perhaps it was the enforced absence from Aloysia Weber, the young Mannheim soprano with whom he had recently fallen in love, that drove him toward a more turbulent minor-keyed creativity.
This A minor work ushers into the sonatas a vibrant emotional intensity. The Allegro, despite its qualifier “maestoso” (stately), has a persistent querulousness, a mood, compounded of angular melody, repeated left-hand chords, and dotted rhythms, that will not be placated. Also in sonata form, the Andante, marked “cantabile con espressione”, offers solace in its spacious opening melody, but the development casts a long shadow that obscures the consolation promised at the beginning.
Once its dotted-rhythm refrain starts, the concluding Presto, again in the minor, moves like a wraith spinning about without ever coming to rest. “It is a most personal expression”, writes Alfred Einstein. “One may look in vain in all the works of other composers of the period for anything similar.”
C.S.
K. 400 Allegro in B flat major (K6 372a) (completed by Maximilian Stadler)
Origin: Vienna, 1781
Between 1778 and 1783 Mozart did not write a single pianoforte sonata; but he did leave us this movement in B flat as a perfect example of his “early Viennese” style, in which brilliance and tenderness battle for supremacy but without either of them gaining the upper hand. During the summer of 1781 Mozart stayed with the Weber family in Vienna, “fooled about and had fun”, as he told his father in a letter of July 25, and became particularly fond of two of Frau Weber’s daughters: Constanze, whom he married in 1782, and her younger sister Sophie, who remained always devoted to him. Soon after the beginning of the development, there are two successive phrases of a soulful character, and over one of these phrases Mozart has written the name “Sophie”, over the other, “Constanze”.
Mozart did not finish the movement. He got only as far as the end of the development, and years later Abbé Stadler added the reprise with quite convincing effect.
W.G.
K. 330 Piano Sonata in C major, No. 10 (K6 300h)
Origin: Salzburg, between late July and late November 1783
Movements: Allegro moderato. Andante cantabile. Allegretto.
The group of three sonatas K. 330-332 was published by Artaria and Co. in Vienna in 1784. Each is quite distinct from the others, with its own felicities and idiosyncrasies. Along with the slightly later B flat Sonata, K. 333, they form the most gratifying group he composed for the piano.
Alfred Einstein described the C major Sonata as “one of the most lovable works Mozart ever wrote”. Indeed, it is difficult to resist its Classical symmetry and ingratiating piano style. The opening Allegro moderato maintains such a light, feathery touch that it is almost an imposition on the music to attempt to explain how it is achieved.
The Andante cantabile, in A-B-A form with a brief coda based on the B section, is the most striking part of the sonata. The spare style at the beginning suggests emotion deeply felt but restrained.
Balancing off the sonata, the Allegretto returns to the Allegro’s relaxed ebullience. But in place of the standard development, Mozart surprises us once more, as he had in the opening movement, by substituting a little interlude inspired by folksong.
C.S.
K. 331 Piano Sonata in A major, No. 11 (K6 300i)
Origin: Salzburg, between late July and late November 1783
Movements: Andante grazioso. Menuetto. Alla turca: Allegretto.
With its unusual sequence of movements – a set of variations, a minuet, and a march-rondo – the A major Sonata resembles a four-movement sonata lacking its opening (sonata form, allegro) movement. Generations of music lovers have made the work, with its famed “Turkish” Rondo, a great favorite.
The sonata opens with a lilting set of variations in 6/8 meter, Andante grazioso. Its theme is the Czech folksong “Horela líps, horela”, also sung to the German words “Freu dich, mein Herz, denk’ an kein”. In some ways, the Minuet is the most extraordinary movement of the sonata, quite unlike anything else Mozart wrote at this point in his career. With its short yearning phrases, chromatically altered harmonies, and nocturne-like accompaniment, it strains our concept of a minuet. The sonata ends with the rondo Alla turca, that wonderful evocation of janissary music (the jangling percussion instruments of a Turkish marching band). Delightfully brash and replete with imaginary drums and cymbals, here is Mozart’s vision of extravagantly clad, mustachioed Turkish soldiers parading down a European city boulevard.
C.S.
K. 332 Piano Sonata in F major, No. 12 (K6 300k)
Origin: Salzburg, between late July and late November 1783
Movements: Allegro. Adagio. Allegro assai.
A remarkable aspect of Mozart’s genius was his ability to compose works such as these early Viennese sonatas within a short space of time and stamp each with a unique character: the C major Sonata with its intimacy and formal balance, the almost bizarre juxtapositions of the A major Sonata and now this F major Sonata – expansive, extroverted, and dramatic. In K. 332, melodic ideas abound, contrasts are highlighted by abrupt changes between major and minor keys, and vigorously sonorous style prevails throughout.
The opening Allegro presents no fewer than seven distinct melodic ideas. Diversified and varied, they reveal unexpected happenings at every turn.
The English critic Arthur Hutchings called the Adagio “the summit of expression Mozart reached without departing from the formality and reticence of his epoch”. In Mozart’s manuscript, the second half of the movement is a simple repeat of the first half, with slight key adjustments; but the first edition of the sonata (1784) included a beautifully embellished version of this repeat, which was almost certainly supplied by Mozart.
In purely pianistic terms the concluding Allegro assai is a brilliant showpiece – a kind of eighteenth-century anticipation of the Lisztian concert étude. Like the first movement, this simple sonata-form Finale presents a wealth of contrasting ideas – six at least – and shifts constantly between major and minor. At the end, though, Mozart lets the bravura fireworks play themselves out and brings the movement to a quiet close.
C.S.
K. 333 Piano Sonata in B flat major, “Linz”, No. 13 (K6 315c)
Origin: Linz and Vienna, mid-November 1783
Movements: Allegro. Andante cantabile. Allegretto grazioso.
A distinct similarity between this sonata and the sonata, Op. 17, No. 4, of J. C. Bach has misled generations of scholars into thinking that Mozart composed K. 333 soon after meeting Bach – and presumably seeing his Sonata – in Paris in 1778. However, recent investigation of the manuscript’s handwriting and watermarks (by Wolfgang Plath and Alan Tyson) suggests that Mozart composed it in late 1783 on his return to Vienna, via Linz, from his extended stay in Salzburg that autumn. During this time he was busily preparing new music for the coming winter concert season in Vienna, including the “Linz” Symphony (K. 425), two aborted comic operas (L’oca del Cairo and Lo sposo deluso), and some ballroom dances (K. 363, 463, and 610). After Mozart had presumably made ample use of the sonata as a concert piece he released it, together with the “Dürnitz” and “Strinasacchi” Sonatas (K. 284 and 454, the latter with violin), for publication as Op. 7 by Christoph Torricella of Vienna in the summer of 1784.
The B flat sonata was clearly written as a showpiece. All three movements begin unassumingly, even self-effacingly, but each one unfolds into a tapestry of masterful design, rich in melody and broad in scope. Both of the first two movements are in full sonata form. The first opens with the forementioned galant reference to J. C. Bach – if it is one; by contrast the development is surprisingly stormy. The second movement is in a very tender and lyrical vein, but it gives way to unusual chromaticisms in the development section. The last movement, the pièce de résistance, is a rondo with three generous episodes. The last episode suddenly blossoms forth into a full-fledged cadenza, quite stunning in effect. In its skillful and humorous balance of sentimentality and showmanship, the sonata prophesies the great piano concertos of 1784 to 1786.
W.C.
K. 457 Piano Sonata in C minor, No. 14
Origin: Vienna, October 14, 1784
Movements: Allegro. Adagio. Allegro assai.
Mozart’s masterly C minor Sonata bears this handwritten dedication: “Sonata. For Piano Solo. Composed for Mrs. Theresa von Trattner by her most humble servant Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Vienna, 14 October 1784.” It remains a generous tribute to his talented twenty-six-year-old pupil, the wife of a Viennese book publisher and entrepreneur. To add to its power, Mozart himself prefaced it with a fantasia in the same key, completed seven months later, in May 1785 (K. 475).
A deep emotional drive permeates the opening Allegro with its portentous octaves forming a defiant rising motif that dominates all parts of the movement. The Adagio provides a restful interlude in this troubled work. It is in A-B-A form with rondo elements added, since the refrain-like opening melody recurs several times with ever more elaborate embellishments.
The concluding rondo, Allegro assai, returns to the troubled atmosphere of the first movement. Mozart also introduces a new and powerful dramatic device – silence. Time after time the music builds to a climax only to be followed by a void, a deadly pause of frustration.
The Beethoven-like passion and power of this sonata are unmistakable. “Beethovenisme d’avant la lettre” (Beethovenism before the fact) is how a French critic expressed it. Alfred Einstein, quoting the remark, went beyond it to claim that “this very sonata contributed a great deal to making Beethovenism possible”.
C.S.
K. 533 Piano Sonata in F major, No. 18
Origin: Vienna, January 3, 1788
Movements: Allegro. Andante. Rondo: Allegretto
Sometime in 1790 the Viennese publisher Franz Anton Hoffmeister issued Mozart’s Sonata in F major. Although the public did not know it at the time and willingly accepted the work, Mozart cheated a bit in creating this sonata. He included an Allegro and Andante he wrote in January 1788 as the first two movements and completed the work with a “little” Rondo, (K. 494), he had written earlier, in June 1786, revising and beefing it up for its new role. Nevertheless, the F major Sonata is as proper a sonata as any and a masterpiece by any standard.
Alfred Einstein hears in the two movements “a grandeur of harmonic and polyphonic conception, a depth of feeling, and a harmonic daring such as we find only in his last works; indeed they are conceived for an entirely different and more powerful instrument than the innocent Rondo, which is written mostly for the middle register”. But even this earlier Rondo, writes Einstein, “is so rich and perfect that no uninitiated listener would observe any break in style”.
The opening Allegro finds Mozart fascinated with contrapuntal textures, as in his other late piano sonatas (K. 570 and 576) and in the great “Jupiter” Symphony, composed in the same year, 1788. The Andante is one of the most daring and disturbing movements in all of Mozart’s music. Ostensibly written in sonata form, it strikes the ear more like a free-floating slow fantasia.
After two such movements it is a distinct relief to enter the world of the Rondo, K. 494. Both hands play high up on the keyboard during much of this charming movement, giving it a delicate, almost glass harmonica aura. But a quickening sense of drama builds throughout, culminating in a twenty-seven measure cadenza ending with a trill – a concerto-like feature that Mozart added in 1788 when he revised the Rondo.
C.S.
K. 545 Piano Sonata in C major, “For Beginners”, No. 15
Origin: Vienna, June 26, 1788
Movements: Allegro. Andante. Rondo: Allegretto.
On June 26, 1788, he listed in his catalogue “eine kleine Klavier Sonate für Anfänger” (a little piano sonata for beginners). It is the delightful and immensely popular C major Sonata, K. 545, known to generations of piano students as the epitome of Mozartean elegance.
Mozart must have been thinking about a series of children’s works at the time; he completed a companion piece for beginners, the violin sonata, K. 547, two weeks later. Yet genius works in unfathomable ways: on one hand Mozart was busy simplifying and distilling his art for youngsters while on the other he was busy writing the monumental triptych of his last three symphonies. The very day he completed this C major Sonata he finished the Symphony No. 39 in E flat, K. 543, and the last movements of both works have similar thematic ideas.
The texture of the first movement is as fresh and transparent as spring water: Mozart’s beginner must learn to play scales with perfect evenness and control. While the Andante makes no attempt at profundity, it shows Mozart spinning out seamless melodic transformations of the gently contoured opening phrase, which somewhat resembles the aria “Dalla sua pace”, written the same year for the Viennese production of Don Giovanni. The Allegretto ends with a bouncy little rondo, rounding out this sonata “for beginners” in merry fashion.
C.S.
K. 570 Piano Sonata in B flat major, No. 16
Origin: Vienna, February 1789
Movements: Allegro. Adagio. Allegretto.
Mozart’s penultimate sonata was composed in February 1789 and reached the public in 1796, five years after his death, tricked out with a completely spurious and inane violin part. The piano style, to be sure, is modest and recalls the sonata “for beginners”, K. 545. But, for the rest – form, melody, scope – the work moves in the mainstream of Mozart’s sonata production.
The opening Allegro is all of a piece since its thematic ideas are related. The Adagio, the centerpiece of the sonata, serves to remind us how restrictive it can be to label Mozart, as some do, strictly a Classicist: the movement is quite Romantic in its luxuriant harmonies and supple, vocally conceived melodies. It is, in fact, one of the most singable movements in all of Mozart’s compositions. Structured as a rondo, the Adagio opens with its refrain – eloquent, yet with a grave, almost ceremonial air about it.
An airy rondo, the Allegretto Finale has a refrain alive with motion. With it, Mozart has written a well-nigh perfect foil for what has gone before in a sonata that Alfred Einstein considered “perhaps the most completely rounded of them all, the ideal of his piano sonata”.
C.S.
K. 576 Piano Sonata in D major, No. 17
Origin: Vienna, July 1789
Movements: Allegro. Adagio. Allegretto.
In July 1789 Mozart composed his last piano sonata. That spring his fortunes had reached one of their periodic low points, so low that a noble pupil, Prince Karl Lichnowsky, took him north to Berlin in hopes that King Frederick William II of Prussia would find some use for his talents. A good cellist, the king frequently commissioned pieces for himself; Luigi Boccherini, Joseph Haydn, and Beethoven, among others, provided them. In Mozart’s case, however, the journey seems not to have produced all he had hoped for. He returned to Vienna with an assignment to compose “six easy clavier sonatas for Princess Frederike and six quartets for the King”, a commission he never completed.
He did, in time, finish three of the six quartets, the “Prussian” Quartets. But, as for the sonatas, he wrote only one, which, as it turned out, never reached the Princess. This is probably just as well, for it is not suitable for a royal amateur but is one of the most difficult and demanding sonatas of them all. Mozart had been profoundly impressed with Bach’s motets, which he encountered in northern Germany. He had written his Bach-oriented Gigue, K. 574, in Bach’s own city of Leipzig. Little wonder that the last piano sonata is permeated with masterly contrapuntal display.
The Allegro opens with a jaunty, trumpet-like fanfare in 6/8 rhythm. In one form or another the fanfare permeates the whole movement. The lovely Adagio is full of yearning couched in subtle melodic and harmonic turns. We are back in the contrapuntal world of J. S. Bach – brought up to date by Mozart’s distinctive voice – in the rondo Finale, a tour de force both as composition and as a pianistic showpiece.
C.S.
Variations
K. 24 8 Variations on “Laat ons Juichen” in G major
Origin: The Hague, January 1766
K. 25 7 Variations on “Willem van Nassau” in D major
Origin: Amsterdam, February 1766
Mozart composed these two sets of variations while visiting the Netherlands as part of his grand tour of 1763-66. The theme of K. 24 had just been composed by Christian Ernst Graaf, the kapellmeister at The Hague, for the celebrations marking the twenty-first birthday of Prince William V of Orange. The theme of K. 25, very noble and deliberate, is the old Netherlands national anthem which seems to have been printed as early as 1603. K. 25 was immediately engraved in The Hague, and is thus one of Mozart’s first published works.
Both works are fairly primitive, although there is an attempt in K. 25 to give each variation an individual character, whereas in K. 24 the earlier variations are merely stages in a progress toward shorter and shorter note values.
W.G.
K. 180 6 Variations on “Mio caro Adone” in G major (K6 173c)
Origin: Vienna, autumn 1773
The theme of these variations is an air (My dear Adonis) from Salieri’s opera La fiera di Venezia, first performed in 1772 and probably heard by Mozart during his visit to Vienna in 1773. The variations follow the Viennese practice of “transforming” the theme, rather than the Italian practice of embellishing it as a singer embellishes the outlines of an aria. They are remarkable for their wealth of expressive nuance.
W.G.
K. 179 12 Variations on a Minuet by Johann Christian Fischer in C major (K6 189a)
Origin: Salzburg, summer 1774
Mozart played these variations as a show piece, and often mentioned them in his letters. The theme comes from the last movement of an oboe concerto by Johann Christian Fischer (1733-1800), a famous oboist who settled in London and married the painter Thomas Gainsborough’s daughter.
Mozart’s twelve variations are worldly and in no sense profound, yet there is every sign that he wrote them with great interest.
W.G.
K. 354 12 Variations on “Je suis Lindor” in E flat major (K6 299a)
Origin: Paris, early 1778
When Mozart went to Paris in 1778, he found the variation form to be very much à la mode. Mozart wrote two works in this form, choosing French melodies for his themes; indeed in the present instance he chose one of the most popular melodies of the day, the serenade sung by Count Almaviva in the first act of Beaumarchais's Le barbier de Séville, in which he declares quite untruthfully to Rosina: “Je suis Lindor, ma naissance est commune” (I am Lindor, born a commoner). The music was by composer Nicolas Dezède, as was the tune on which K. 264 is based (see below).
It would be difficult to name another piano work of Mozart’s that has such richness of texture and such an extraordinary tenderness of expression. The work ends curiously, with a short cadenza marked “Caprice”.
W.G.
K. 264 9 Variations on “Lison dormait” in C major (K6 315d)
Origin: Paris, late summer 1778
The theme of these variations is also an air (Lison slept) by Nicolas Dezède, a remarkable composer born in Croatia in the 1740s and already at the height of his fame when Mozart visited Paris. Mozart evidently liked his music for he set another of his airs as K. 354 (see above). Those are the more poetical variations, these are the more brilliant and daring. K. 264 is also very daring in it harmonies; for C major is a key in which Mozart liked to confront us with the last word in modernism.
W.G.
K. 352 8 Variations on “Dieu d’amour” in F major (K6 374c)
Origin: Vienna, June 1781
André-Ernest-Modeste Grétry wrote this march (God of Love) in E major, but Mozart raised it to F, the key of the March of the Priests in Die Zauberflöte. It makes a noble theme, whose most dramatic detail is an ascending scale toward the end. Mozart’s treatment is serious throughout; even the final Allegro variation is cut off the moment it has run the course of the theme, and so the work has no concluding flourish.
W.G.
K. 265 12 Variations on “Ah vous dirai-je, Maman” in C major (K6 300e)
Origin: Vienna, 1781 or 1782
These C major Variations are so much like a series of exercises for mastering the various kinds of touch, and in playing scales, arpeggios, and ornaments, that Mozart must surely have written them for one of his pupils. Even so, this technical aspect is the least interesting; for, in listening to the music, we are aware far more of the delicate ordering of the variations and of their individual beauty. The theme was a popular French air entitled “Les amours de Silvandre” (Silvandre’s loves). This tune is known to Americans as the children’s song “Twinkle, twinkle little star”.
W.G.
K. 353 12 Variations on “La belle Françoise” in E flat major (K6 300f)
Origin: Vienna, 1781 or 1782
These variations are among the finest of all those written by Mozart. Why “La belle Françoise” (the beautiful French woman)? In the 1930s Georges Saint-Foix came across a potpourri (by a certain Mme Kamermann) “sur le Départ, et la Mort de M. Malbrough. ...” (on the departure and death of the Duke of Marlborough). Page 4 of this potpourri has the title: “Les Adieux de M. à Mme Malbrough” (the Duke’s farewells to his wife); and there the illustrious English soldier says to his companion: “Adieu donc, Dame française” (Goodbye, then, my French lady) – to the same melody as the theme of K. 353.
W.G.
K. 398 6 Variations on “Salve tu, Domine” in F major (K6 416e)
Origin: Vienna, March 1783
Mozart tells his father (March 29, 1783) that at his last concert he had improvised “variations on an air from [Giovanni Paisiello’s] opera called Die Philosophen [I Filosofi immaginarii], which were encored”. These have come down to us as K. 398. They are extraordinarily free, and some of the patterns (Variations 2 and 6) still preserve the theatrical excitement of a great occasion. The theme is quite complex; it runs on without any repeats, and falls into two main sections, with a pause toward the end, which Mozart observes whenever he reaches it. The fact is, however, that after Variation 3 he never does reach it; indeed Variation 5 and 6 never even get as far as the second half of the theme.
W.G.
K. 460 8 Variations on “Come un agnello” in A major (K6 454a)
Origin: Vienna, June 1784?
In the early summer of 1784 both Giovanni Paisiello and Giuseppe Sarti came to Vienna. Mozart wrote to his father about Sarti: “He is a good honest fellow! I have played a great deal to him and have composed variations on an air of his, which pleased him tremendously.” The variations are on an air (“Like a lamb”) from Sarti’s opera Fra i due litiganti. The same air reappears in the second finale of Don Giovanni, as one of the popular hits of the day. Mozart’s autograph manuscript contains only the tune and two variations; the authenticity of the other six variations; found in the first edition of 1803, are hotly debated among Mozart experts.
W.G.
K. 455 10 Variations on “Unser dummer Pöbel meint” in G major
Origin: Vienna, August 25, 1784
The theme of these variations is an air from Christoph Willibald Gluck’s comic opera La rencontre imprévue. It is sung by the Calender Monk, who in his wisdom feasts on wine and delicatessen while the “stupid man in the street” (“Der dummer Pöbel”) imagines him living on fruit and milk. Mozart reflects this buffoonery once or twice. Otherwise, however, he takes Gluck’s air simply as the starting point for some of his finest variations.
W.G.
K. 500 12 Variations on an Original Allegretto in B flat major
Origin: Vienna, October 12, 1786
This seems to be one of those works in which unusual elements meet and interact for a moment, leaving a flavor that is quite unique. Certain new techniques come from Muzio Clementi: the triplet figuration in Variations 1 and 2, for example; the bass pattern in Variation 4; and most striking of all, the successions of chords placed in a high register in Variation 8. It is not known who wrote the theme of K. 500 – possibly Mozart himself.
W.G.
K. 54 6 Variations on an Original Andante in F major (K2 Anh 138a, K6 547b)
Origin: Vienna, July 1788
These variations appear both as the last movement of the Sonata in F for Piano and Violin, K. 547 (“for beginners”); and also, with a new Variation 4 and the coda to Variation 6 rewritten, as a keyboard piece. It is an indication of their quality that Variation 5 (in the minor) and Variation 6, with its brilliant flow of thirty-second notes, are reminiscent of the last two variations in the Andante of the great String Trio (Divertimento), K. 563.
W.G.
K. 573 9 Variations on a Minuet by Jean-Pierre Duport in D major
Origin: Potsdam, April 29, 1789
Duport was a famous cellist who worked for Frederick the Great at the Prussian court, which Mozart visited in 1789 seeking patronage. Duport’s dull Minuet (a well-worn formula that Mozart himself had turned into poetry in “Deh vieni, non tardar” in The Marriage of Figaro) evidently did not incite Mozart to compose anything of great quality; only the keyboard style, one or two variations, and the coda suggest that K. 573 is a work of his last years. Mozart’s autograph manuscript is lost. Since his catalogue of his own works and advertisements for manuscript copies in a Viennese newspaper in 1791 both refer to K. 573 as having only six variations, three of the variations may be spurious.
W.G.
K. 613 8 Variations on “Ein Weib ist das herrlichste Ding” in F major
Origin: Vienna, March 1791
Mozart wrote these variations on “A wife is the most splendid thing” in March 1791. The theme is a song from the second part of an operetta called Der dumme Gärtner aus dem Gebirge (The Dumb Gardener from the Highlands), by Benedikt Schack and Franz Xaver Gerl, which Emanuel Schikaneder (of Magic Flute fame) produced in Vienna with great success in 1789. The first eight measures of the theme remain, in a sense, separate from the rest. In no single instance does Mozart set the distinctive pattern of each new variation until the first eight measures are over. The explanation must be that these first eight measures are an instrumental introduction to the song, and Mozart evidently thought of them as such.
W.G.
Fantasias, fugues, and independent movements
K2 154a Two Little Fugues (Versets) (K3 Anh. 109VIII, K6 Anh. A61 and A62)
Origin: Salzburg? c. 1772 to 1773
Scoring: organ?
These two fugues, of twelve and thirteen measures respectively, have the look of miniature exercises in seventeenth-century keyboard counterpoint, although they are well polished. Mozart wrote them on two sides of a single sheet. Each consists of an exposition in four voices and a concluding cadential passage.
The fugues are easily playable by two hands. Since in 1773 Mozart had not yet been appointed organist at Salzburg, the occasion for these works and the following Fugue, K. 401, is unclear. They may prove to be Mozart’s copies of works by an earlier Salzburg composer.
W.C.
K. 401 Fugue in G minor (completed by Maximilian Stadler) (K6 375e)
Origin: Salzburg? 1772 or 1773?
Scoring: organ?
This lengthy fugue is in many ways a precursor of the great C minor Fugue for Two Pianos, K. 426. The subject prominently features the interval of a diminished seventh (which reappears in both K. 426 and the Kyrie of the Requiem). It is developed exhaustively in inversion and stretto (closely overlapping entries of the theme), with much chromaticism and excursions into keys as distant as E minor. Like a few of J. S. Bach’s early fugues, the final cadence is left uncomposed, to allow for an improvised conclusion. Stadler’s completion proceeds directly to a pedal point and a final canonic statement of the subject.
Despite its notation in piano score, the piece is unplayable by two hands; it is usually performed on the organ or as a piano duet.
W.C.
K. 395 Capriccio in C major (K3 284a, K6 300g)
Origin: Munich, October 1777
Scoring: piano
This extraordinary piece shows the influence both of J. S. and of C. P. E. Bach. J. S. Bach’s influence is seen in the imitations of the first part and in certain figurative patterns in the Allegro assai (Prelude No. 2 of the Well-Tempered Clavier). C. P. E. Bach’s influence is apparent in the sudden changes of mood, in the great use of diminished chords (measure 7, which lasts for a whole page, is more or less a fantasia on the diminished seventh), and above all, in the design (Allegretto – Andantino – Capriccio: Allegro assai) with the slow section in the middle.
W.G.
K. 394 Prelude and Fugue in C major (K6 383a)
Origin: Vienna, early 1782
Scoring: piano
It was in 1782 that Mozart was first introduced by Baron van Swieten to the works of Bach. Köchel’s catalogue alone shows how profoundly Mozart was upset: fugue after fugue was begun and abandoned in 1782. Of the present one, he says in a letter to his sister of April 20 of that year that he composed it first and wrote it down while he was thinking out the Prelude. The subject of the Fugue recalls that of No. 1 of The Well-Tempered Clavier.
W.G.
K. *396 Fantasia in C minor (completed by Maxmilian Stadler) (K6 385f)
Origin: Vienna, early 1782
Scoring: piano
Mozart evidently intended this “fantasia” to be the first movement of a sonata for violin and pianoforte; but it suffered the same fate as twenty other works begun during 1782, and he never finished it. Indeed (so far as is known), he wrote only the exposition, and Abbé Stadler added the development and reprise, meanwhile turning the whole movement into a piece for pianoforte alone.
W.G.
K. 397 Fantasia in D minor (completed anonymously) (K6 385g)
Origin: Vienna, early 1782 (or 1786 to 1787?)
Scoring: piano
Mozart completed the first two sections of this fantasia, and part of a third. The central Adagio, to which the Andante and final D major Allegretto are hardly more than introduction and coda, is a stirring piece of theater, and reminds us of an operatic scena. But behind this evocation of opera, with its changes of pulse and mood, its startling silences and its passionate outcries, there is a logic of construction as powerful as that of a “pure” instrumental movement. All but the final ten measures of the familiar completed version are by Mozart; the completion may be by Mozart’s Leipzig admirer, August Eberhard Müller.
W.G.
K. 399 Suite in C major (incomplete) (K6 385i)
Origin: Vienna, early 1782
Scoring: piano
Though this is a charming imitation of a suite in early eighteenth-century style, it runs counter to the practices of Bach and Handel in two respects. First, it is quite “irregular” that the Allemande should follow the Overture without a break; and secondly, instead of every movement being in the same key, the Overture is in C major, the Allemande in C minor, the Courante in E flat major, and the unfinished Sarabande in G minor.
W.G.
K3 453a Marche funèbre del Sigr Maestro Contrapuncto in C minor
Origin: Vienna, 1784
Scoring: piano
Mozart wrote two of his piano concertos, K. 449 and K. 453, for his pupil Babette von Ployer; K. 453a is his contribution of sixteen measures of music to this young woman’s autograph album, possibly in the same year as the concertos, 1784. Mozart’s own title, Funeral March By Maestro Counterpoint, prepares us for anything, including a hair-raising progression with consecutive fifths in measure 5.
W.G.
K. 475 Fantasia in C minor
Origin: Vienna, May 20, 1785
Scoring: piano
This fantasia is so complete in itself that it is difficult to think of it as a “prelude”, although Mozart published it together with the C minor Sonata, K. 457, that he had written in the previous year. It contains five sections: Adagio, Allegro, Andantino, Più Allegro, and Tempo I, in the last of which the opening Adagio returns in a relentless form to round off the whole piece.
W.G.
K. 485 Rondo in D major
Origin: Vienna, January 10, 1786
Scoring: piano
If you listen to this as a “rondo”, you will find that, instead of the principal theme appearing always in the tonic (as for example in the rondo of the piano sonata, K. 309), it enters in any key it fancies: D, A, G, D minor, F, B flat. You will even find that there is no “principal” theme, for the simple reason that there are no episodes, no other themes at all. This Rondo is in fact a sonata movement based on a single theme, with repeat marks at the end of the exposition, a clearly defined “development”, and a reprise which conducts itself with almost careless abandon. The theme of K. 485 had already appeared in the Finale of the G minor Piano Quartet, K. 478.
W.G.
K. 494 Rondo in F major
Origin: Vienna, June 10, 1786
Scoring: piano
Mozart wrote this rondo in June 1786, but he published it in 1788 as the third movement of a sonata beginning with the Allegro and Andante of the piano sonata, K. 533. In the original version of 1786 the moment of dramatic culmination was the final appearance of the principal theme deep in the bass. But in preparing the rondo for publication with K. 533, Mozart inserted an exciting “cadenza” of 27 measures.
W.G.
K. 511 Rondo in A minor
Origin: Vienna, March 11, 1787
Scoring: piano
This rondo is a work of such harmonic daring that it prophesies aspects of Schubert and of Chopin. It unfolds on a very large scale, yet without any theatrical oppositions of rhythm or texture or outline. The principal theme and the two episodes in F and A each have a different underlying movement: eighth notes, sixteenths, triplet sixteenths. Above all, the A minor Rondo stands close to the G minor Quintet, K. 516, both in date of composition and in depth of meaning.
W.G.
K. 540 Adagio in B minor
Origin: Vienna, March 19, 1788
Scoring: piano
The design of this extraordinary Adagio is that of a movement in sonata form, but in expression it is much more like a fantasia, with many abrupt changes of dynamics, many silences (the music breaks off twenty times in three pages), and an intense quality in the outlines and harmonies.
W.G.
K. 355 Minuet in D major (with a Trio by Maximilian Stadler) (K3 594a, K6 576b)
Origin: Vienna, 1786 to 1787?
Scoring: piano
“K. 355” is misleading, for the D major Minuet is of course a late work of Mozart’s, as one can tell by its chromaticism, its audacious harmonies, and the extraordinary contrasts it is able to express within a single page. It stands alone, without a Trio, though Abbé Stadler added a rather remarkable one in B minor.
W.G.
K. 574 Gigue in G major, “Eine kleine Gigue”
Origin: Leipzig, May 16, 1789
Scoring: piano
This gigue is a masterpiece of one page into which Mozart has crowded many daring thoughts. He wrote it on May 16, 1789, for the family album of an organist in Leipzig, and evidently as a tribute to Bach. Yet it reminds us very little of Bach, except that it is a gigue in contrapuntal style; nor is it the most Mozartian piece you have ever heard. Indeed it seems to stand quite alone; a phenomenon with daring outlines, twisting rhythms, and audacious harmonies.
W.G.
K. 594 Adagio and Allegro in F minor, “For the Organ-Works of a Clock”
Origin: Vienna and elsewhere, October to December 1790
Scoring: mechanical organ
This work, along with two contemporaneous works for mechanical organs, K. 608 and 616, is said to have been commissioned by Count Josef Deym von Stritetz, proprietor of the Müller Wax Museum and Art Gallery in Vienna, in which were exhibited some dozens of mechanical curiosities. While in Frankfurt for the coronation of Emperor Leopold II in October 1790, Mozart wrote to Constanze:
So I firmly resolved to write the adagio for the clock-maker then to put a few ducats in my dear little wife’s hands; I have been at it, too – but it is loathsome work, I have been so unhappy that I cannot complete it – I work on it every day – but must always lay it aside for a time because it bores me – and, of course, if it was not being done for such an important reason, I would surely abandon it entirely – so I still hope to finish it bit by bit; – well, if it were a big clock and the thing sounded like an organ, it would be nice; but instead the organ has only little pipes that sound too childish to me.
The “clock-maker” may refer to Father Primitivus Niemecz, who built organ-clocks to Haydn’s music, and was custodian of the mechanical devices in the Müller Gallery. Whether the music Mozart refers to is one of the extant works is unclear, since Mozart’s personal catalogue dates the earliest of them in December. If anything, it is more likely K. 616, with its range of tenor f to high f''', than to K. 594 or 608, with ranges of tenor c to high d''', or high c#''' respectively.
Despite Mozart’s ill prejudice, the three compositions are all miniature masterpieces. K. 594 is in three connected sections, fast-slow-fast. The central Allegro in F major is a sonata-form piece of heroic dimensions; it is flanked by two gravely somber Adagios in F minor, the second of which develops and resolves the material of the first.
These works have entered the public consciousness mainly in arrangements for organ and piano four-hands. Only K. 616 is known to have been actually pinned on a barrel for use in a mechanical organ.
W.C.
K. 608 Fantasia in F minor, “An Organ Piece for a Clock”
Origin: Vienna, March 3, 1791
Scoring: mechanical organ
This is the second of the three works commissioned for the Müller Gallery, and is in many ways the twin of K. 594, with contrasting aspects reversed: its three sections are Allegro in F minor, Andante in A flat major, and Allegro in F minor. The second Allegro again develops the material of the first, but this time in a fugato of considerable proportion and masterful counterpoint. It is only a step or two from this piece – especially in its four-hand version – to Franz Schubert’s monumental Fantasia in F minor for piano duet.
W.C.
K. 616 Andante in F major, “For the Barrel of a Little Organ”
Origin: Vienna, May 4, 1791
Scoring: mechanical organ
This is the last of Mozart’s three pieces for mechanical organ. It is a rondo in A-B-A-C-A-B-A form of considerable proportion and elaborate filigree. While Mozart notated the previous two works on four staves (clefs: three treble, one bass) like string quartet music, he notated this piece on three staves (all treble clefs); he nonetheless retained a four-voiced texture, which gives the work a diamondlike depth in its concentrated aural space. The wealth of ornamentation and passage-work must have come off splendidly on a mechanical organ, and it would have borne the amount of repeated listening the piece must have had in the Müller Gallery.
W.C.
K. 356 Adagio in C major (K6 617a)
Origin: Vienna, 1791
Scoring: glass harmonica
Mozart presumably composed this piece for Marianne Kirchgessner, the glass harmonica virtuoso for whom he also wrote the Quintet, K. 617, at about the same time. It is a binary movement of twenty-eight measures, a memorably simple and lovely creation that breathes the aura of the ethereal, like much of the Magic Flute music that occupied Mozart at the time.
W.C.
Early sketchbooks
K. la-f, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5a-b 12 Pieces, “Nannerl’s Music Book”
Origin: early 1761 to summer 1763
Scoring: keyboard
The library of the Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum in Salzburg has, since 1864, owned a celebrated manuscript volume usually known as “Nannerl’s Notebook”. This is the music book that Leopold Mozart prepared for the use of his daughter, Maria Anna (Nannerl, born in July 1751). A label on the cover of the Notebook, inscribed by Leopold, proclaims: “Pour le / Clavecin / ce Livre appartient á Mademoiselle / Marie Anne / Mozartin / 1759.” But what has conferred especial fame on the modest volume is the fact that soon after it came into existence, it was used by Nannerl’s younger brother, Wolfgang. He not only studied and learned several of the pieces written in the book, some of them before his fifth birthday, but when a little later he began to compose, he entered his earliest compositions there in his childish hand. Leopold also entered compositions by Wolfgang, and the dates that certain pieces had been learned or composed were added by the fond father.
Thus the Notebook is at once a record of part of the music that the two Mozart children studied and assimilated and a repository of Wolfgang’s earliest essays in composition. Unfortunately the book is not as complete as it once was, particularly in respect to Wolfgang’s compositions. Nannerl (in whose possession the book remained until her death in 1829) is known to have given away several leaves containing pieces by her brother; and although the present location of some of these leaves is known, it is clear that others have been lost.
The Notebook originally had forty-eight leaves, or ninety-six pages; of the forty-eight leaves, only thirty-six remain. Seven additional leaves that almost certainly were removed from the Notebook survive: one each in the Museum Carolino Augusteum, Salzburg, the Universitätsbibliothek, Leipzig, and a private collection; and two leaves each in the Morgan Library, New York, and the Bibliothèque nationale, Paris. Another leaf formerly in the Mozarteum in Salzburg but now lost is preserved musically if not physically by a facsimile published in 1871. By studying the watermarks and other physical characteristics of the paper as well as the musical contents of these isolated leaves, it is possible to reconstruct where they must originally have been in the Notebook.
Thus eight of our twelve missing leaves are accounted for. And the contents of one or two others may be rescued as well, as they were published in the biography of Mozart which his widow Constanze and her second husband Georg Nikolaus Nissen published in 1828.
The surviving pieces by the infant Wolfgang presently or previously in the Notebook, with their dates of composition when known, comprise the following:
K. 1a: an Andante in C major of ten measures, bizarrely shifting between 3/4 and 2/4;
K. 1b: an Allegro in C major of twelve measures with alternating hands;
K. 1c: an Allegro in F major of twelve measures in the style of a contredanse (December 11, 1761);
K. 1d: a Minuet in F major of twenty measures (December 16, 1761);
K. 1 (1e): a Minuet in G major of sixteen measures, one of the best known of these pieces, often played by children nowadays;
K. 1 (1f): a Minuet in C major of sixteen measures, probably meant as the Trio of the previous work;
K. 2: a Minuet in F major of twenty-four measures, also a favorite with children (January 1762);
K. 3: an Allegro in B flat major of thirty measures, another contredanse (March 4, 1762);
K. 4: a Minuet in F major of twenty-four measures (May 11, 1762);
K. 5: a Minuet in F major of twenty-two measures (July 5, 1762);
K. 5a (9a): an Allegro in C major of forty-four measures, a tiny sonata movement;
K. 5b (9b): an Andante in B flat major of forty-three measures, incomplete but possibly also intended as a sonata movement; and six
pieces that were later reworked as movements of the violin sonatas, Opuses 1 and 2 (K. 6-9).
A.T.
K6 15a-ss 44 Untitled Pieces, “London (Chelsea) Notebook”, (K3 Anh 109b)
Origin: London, second half of 1764
Scoring: keyboard, or possibly also sketches for orchestra
“There is a sort of national disease here which is called a ‘cold’ ... for people who are not very strong the best advice is to leave England.” But if you have visited London to make your fortune by presenting your two infant phenomena to royalty, the nobility, and the gentry, you content yourself with moving to the pleasant village of Chelsea. Leopold Mozart, who wrote the rather baleful advice above in September 1764, made a complete recovery there. His eight-year-old son Wolfgang spent the seven weeks in Chelsea filling a notebook with music. After the family’s return to London, he gave some concerts, composed his first symphony, dedicated a set of sonatas to the Queen, and left England forever in the following year.
The notebook, bearing the words “di Wolfgango Mozart à Londra” in the hand of Leopold, turned up again toward the end of the nineteenth century. The forty-three pieces, entirely in Wolfgang’s hand, were published by Georg Schünemann in 1909. All but three of the sketches are complete, though full of blobs and small mistakes; they are unimpressive on the modern piano, but present an entirely normal texture for mid-eighteenth-century harpsichord music. Some pieces even have indications of repeated notes in the manner of a short score, and a few contain intervals not playable on the keyboard, suggesting that the little boy obviously heard this music in his mind as orchestral music.
In later years Mozart’s normal practice in composing was to begin by writing out the melodic line and the bass with a few indications of accompanying figures, working at great speed in order to seize his inspiration. Later, he filled in all the other parts, a more leisurely activity. Some of these pieces are surely sketches of this kind, rather than complete keyboard works. The writing is largely in two parts with occasional chords; there is only one indication of tempo and none of dynamics. In modern times some of these sketches have been orchestrated and performed.
E.S.