“ Her performances are natural, well balanced, structurally sound and expressive, especially in the deeply felt slow movements. It is a joy to hear what she has to say about this wonderful music and to look forward to more.”
– American Record Guide (of Vol. 2)
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Program Notes by Elizabeth Rich
In 1778, Mozart was in Paris. He wrote: “You have no idea what a dreadful time I am having here. Everything goes so slowly, and until one is well known—nothing can be done in the matter of composition.” And again, May 29th 1778, to his father: “I am tolerably well, thank God, but my life often seems to be without rhyme or reason. I am neither hot nor cold—and take little joy in anything.”
The Parisian nobility—for whose patronage he had come—ignored Mozart; so did musical circles and musicians in Paris. He was now deeply in love with the singer Aloysia Weber of Mannheim and longed for her, painfully and futilely. Only Mozart’s mother had accompanied him to Paris; there on July 3rd, after a three-weeks’ illness, she died.
There are 5 Paris piano sonatas from these dark months. The first is the unprecedented A-Minor Sonata, K. 310 (Volume 2). This album presents the others.
Sonata in C Major, K. 330
Where the preceding A-minor sonata is large-scaled, agitated, tragic, with that intensity of Mozart’s rare minor-key works, this C-major sonata appears to regain some classical Greek ideal in its slenderness. The opening themes of both first movements of both sonatas outline the triad:
Measure 27 (K. 330) is rhythmically even closer to K. 310.
The mastery and economy of K. 330 also carry forward the achievement of K. 310. Each idea, each tone is so highly integrated that we sense the distillation within the sonata’s flow and ease, the concealed art in its artlessness.
The first movement’s brief two-voiced development section reaches the highest eloquence. The opening of the Andante is marked “dolce”; later, there is a shadowy middle section in minor. Originally it consisted of 16 measures; that is, its 4-measure coda (a return to the opening sixths) was added later. The beautiful final four measures of the movement where this figure returns in major are also missing from the autograph and were added later. It is surprising to realize that they were not part of the original thought. The third movement, despite its rondo-like theme, is in sonata form.
Sonata in A Major, K. 331
Mozart wrote to his father from Paris (Feb. 7, 1778): “As you know, I can more or less adopt or imitate any kind and style of composition.” He meant here the national styles: German, Italian and French. This A-major sonata—so much a favorite, and surely the most French of these “Paris” sonatas—recalls this remark. Did Mozart intend to write a work more pleasing to the general public—as his father repeatedly urged—than, for example, that tragic A-minor sonata, K. 310, which Paris ignored?
The other well-known set of theme and variations in the Mozart sonatas ends the large-scale D-Major Sonata, K. 284 (Volume 1); there the theme has irregular barring and the variations are of a concerto-like brilliance. Here, in K. 331, the variations constitute the first movement. The theme’s song-like simplicity has “spelled” Mozart to generations (much as the opening of the Fifth Symphony has “spelled” Beethoven). So, that this theme may be called “French” does not make it less Mozartian. Particularly Mozartian is the strengthening (i.e., forte) of the “summing-up” last phrase, which repeats the entire range of the melody. This strengthening is carried through in all the variations. The 6/8 theme has 6 variations: Variation III is in minor; Var. IV features the crossing of hands; Variation V is an embellished Adagio, and Var. VI is an Allegro in 2/4. (These changes in meter and tempo are customary.)
Where is the sonata form in this sonata? We find it in this main part of the second movement, a movement whose compositionally complex economy is audible. Thus, the second theme ends in the dominant and is followed by music of true development-section quality; in the return, this second theme appears in the tonic. Moreover, the Trio which follows presents its own version of sonata form.
There was a vogue for Turkish exoticism in Europe around 1800. Mozart’s opera, The Abduction from the Seraglio (1781), is one witness; there are other examples, and even Beethoven, in his “Ruins of Athens”—and elsewhere—has used the effect of Turkish color.
The characteristic instruments of the Janizary, the Sultan’s guard, were drums, symbols, triangles and an instrument called the Turkish crescent, something like a large tambourine on a pole. Many harpsichords and pianos in the 18th Century were fitted with a Janizary stop, which produced a rattling noise. This “rattling” sound is provided in the Rondo alla Turca by its broken chords and accented appoggiaturas. The beginning of the Rondo movement in A minor and the alternations of minor with major in the movement also convey orientalism.
Sonata in F Major, K. 332
This is an ever-beloved work, and some of that love is for its wealth of melodies; at the same time, it is the interrelationship of these “new” melodies that makes the form so eloquent and the melodies themselves so satisfying and beautiful. Alfred Einstein writes of the first movement of this sonata, untypical and expressive in its 3/4 meter: “The charm of this sonata’s beginning lies in the fact that it is not like a beginning but like a second theme, lyrical and songful, as if fallen from heaven. It is followed by an after-theme that is like a lovely sound of nature, with the horn-like fifths in the left hand… then… by a menacing section in D minor full of the tension of the minor, out of which the second theme unfolds like a luminous phenomenon. Idea springs from idea…”
It has been said that the second movement must have appealed to Chopin. (Its embellished cantilena over left-hand accompaniment, in simple two-part form, is compared thus to a nocturne.) The marking “Adagio” is relatively rare in Mozart (as in Chopin). The brilliant last movement is in sonata form. In both second and third movements, there is a notable use of the minor color in the major keys.
Sonata in B-flat Major, K. 333
We know that Johann Christian Bach visited Paris in the summer of 1778 and probably played the sonatas he was about to publish, as Op. 17, for Mozart. Mozart’s letters, however, do not mention playing his own new sonatas for his “admired senior.” Was he already, at 22, too wisely tactful? But we are likely hearing J. C. Bach’s visit in the first movement of K. 333—(as also in the Adagio of the preceding sonata). Hearing, that is, Mozart’s transformations of elements of Bach’s keyboard style.
This B-flat sonata is on a larger scale than those preceding. Its development sections, both in the first movement and in the Andante (also in sonata form) are particularly inspired. In the Andante’s development section, how dramatically the bass mounts in half steps—first mysterious, then leading to openness.
The Rondo is so large-scale as to include a cadenza (ordinarily the virtuoso improvisation of the solo instrument in a concerto). This Rondo seems like a large, fully mature relative of the young rondo in the B-flat Sonata, K. 281 (Volume 1). The differences among these five Paris sonatas—the variety within the mastery they share—astonish freshly as we listen consecutively to these consecutive works from the summer of 1778.
Mozart Complete Piano Sonatas, Volume 3 was recorded in 2001 and originally published by Connoisseur Society in 2001.