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“The entire Mozart project warrants any record collector’s
serious consideration as a major contribution to the genre”
– Audiophile Audition, of the Complete Mozart Piano Sonatas
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Program Notes by Elizabeth Rich
Mozart’s previous sonatas appeared in groups: the 6 earliest published sonatas (1774-5) from Salzburg and Munich when Mozart was 18; the 2 Mannheim sonatas (1777); the 5 Paris sonatas of 1778 (Discs 1, 2, 3).
There ensued a space of 6 years. Mozart had moved to Vienna: these were the years of his subscription concerts and many of the great piano concerti; the years of “Idomeneo” and “The Abduction from the Seraglio,” of the Haffner and Linz symphonies. In 1782 Mozart had married Constanze Weber, the sister of that Aloysia for whom he had longed in Paris.
After 6 years, new sonatas begin to appear, but singly from now on. There are other new quantities; one is the influence of J. S. Bach. Bach’s music was generally unknown at the time, but at the home of Baron von Swieten, Director of the Imperial Court Library, Mozart discovered Bach manuscripts: “The Art of the Fugue” and copies of “The Well-Tempered Clavier” and other pages. Now we hear the influence of Bach in Mozart’s increased focus on contrapuntal motion and in specific imitations: in canons, in bass entrances and the passing of melodies between the voices. Behind these is Mozart’s intensified interest in voice-leading itself.
As the 1780s advance, we move into the landscape of late Mozart. The late paintings of Rembrandt and Titian, the works of Beethoven’s last decade—differ strikingly from early Rembrandt, Titian, Beethoven. Along with supreme compositional mastery, late work seems to reflect changes in the artist’s attitudes towards life; “spiritualization” and “distillation” are our attempts to describe this. Even though Mozart was to die in 1791, aged only 35, “late Mozart” becomes a recognition which enlarges musical understanding. We hear less brilliance and fewer notes. This economy differs from the “thin” scoring of Mozart’s early sonatas; it is no longer “galant” but “distilled” in the sense suggested above. It is as though more notes have been transformed into fewer, expressing a different lyricism—a turning inward rather than the brilliance which reaches out. This results then in a new keyboard sound; at its height, it is unearthly.
Fantasia in C-minor, K. 475
Sonata in C-minor, K. 457
The C-minor Sonata was composed on October 14th, 1784; more than 6 months later, on May 20th, 1785, Mozart composed the Fantasia as an incomparable preface to it. He published them together himself, dedicating them to Therese von Trattner, his pupil and the wife of a printer and publisher. And Mozart wrote instructions for the performance of both compositions; these have been lost—and with them an important document of Mozart’s performance practice.
We know that the young Beethoven was particularly interested in K. 475 and 457: that his youthful Pathétique is inspired by and partly modeled on them. (Some connections and parallels are explored in the program notes to Disc 5.) Let me quote here only the A-flat 2nd theme of Mozart’s Adagio:
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which is familiar as the famous theme of Beethoven’s A-flat Adagio:
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C-minor is the archetypal Beethovian key for heroic or tragic works and K. 475 and 457 have been called “Beethovenism avant la lettre.” Surely it is the reverse: that C-minor and heroism and drama are already Mozart’s territory.
A fantasy is a fully-composed work using the characteristics of an improvisation. Instead of cleaving to a prescribed compositional journey (though always finding new ways to make it), the fantasy sets out to wander from the path, to surprise, to let one tone seem to suggest another—and ultimately to find its way home. Along with the extravagance of “modulation,” an extremity of contrasts occurs, with increased tension at the points of change.
The listener may be able to hear on the first page of Mozart’s Fantasia the implacably-descending chromatic bass line which stops at G-flat; this G-flat, some measures later, leads, as F-sharp, into a singing adagio section in D-major. The swiftness of this descent at the beginning of the composition and the contrasts between the two sections display the boldness of the imagination, the continuing extremity of contrasts and the heights of the dramatic and lyric in the composition as a whole. At the same time, the whole is bound by an incomparably original structural logic.
Only two Mozart piano sonatas are in minor keys. (The other “tragic” sonata in A-minor, K. 310, also expresses great agitation.) Musical materials in the Sonata and the Fantasia are related. Notable in both is great keyboard range; even the Sonata’s broad concerto-like Adagio has embellishments connecting soprano with bass. In the last movement, the right hand may be heard reaching deeply down into the left hand’s territory. How incisive and terse the Sonata seems compared to the Fantasia! Was it the very compression of these outer C-minor movements that led—months later—to Mozart’s additional exploration of the material in the Fantasia?
Sonata in F major, K. 533 and 494
On June 10th, 1786, Mozart wrote a rondo in F-major for a student. On January 3rd, 1788, he wrote two movements —an allegro and an andante—somewhat altered the rondo, and sent the three as a sonata to his friend and publisher, Hoffmeister, to whom he owed money at the time. The audible discrepancy between the first two movements and the rondo has been noticed by many commentators; to this one, it is remarkable how well the contrasting rondo works.
The contrapuntal influence of Bach is evident. In the opening Allegro, each theme appears in both treble and bass (right hand and left hand) with a counter-melody; hence the length of the sections and the range on the keyboard. The first motive itself could be that of a Bach Invention. After the second theme, which uses triplets, an “extra” bassoon-like theme enters in bass quarter notes; its derivation is revealed only in the recapitulation as that of a perfect counter-point to the first theme.
Immediately striking in the Andante are the alterations and suspensions of its second measure, their resolution and correction in the third. The first phrase, of 4 measures, is followed by a 6-measure upward motion; then the first phrase is repeated and the upward motion extended to 7 measures, with an improvisatory “wandering” or “reaching” effect that recurs in different ways throughout this remarkable movement. The Andante is in sonata form, and its development section reaches its apex in a passage that achieves this “reaching” effect through the most exacting counterpoint. In the recapitulation, the repeat of the melody is given to the bass, and covered by a poignant treble use of what had been the consoling concluding theme.
The Rondo was written for a smaller, higher register of the keyboard than these movements. After their complexity, the simplicity of its opening—marked “piano” by Mozart himself—is telling. The beautiful minore section is written strictly for three parts. To tailor this rondo to the purposes of the sonata, Mozart added a cadenza—with a canonic section—and a conclusion in the lower register.
Sonata in C-major, K. 545
This “little sonata for beginners” is, of course, difficult—in its transparency—for our instrument, just as C-major, the “easiest” key is—lacking black keys— the most difficult for the keyboard player. For beginners’ sakes, only one hand at a time has the melody; nevertheless Mozart’s new style may be heard in the imitations of the first movement’s development section, for an example. Why does the recapitulation begin in F-major instead of C-major as it should? Is it because the idea of transposing the first section seems simpler to Mozart’s musician’s mind than would the recomposition of the tonic-dominant relationship?
In the Andante, there is a very beautiful interaction between melody and bass line. The minor section, with its chromaticism and altered tones, shows particularly—as this sonata does generally—complex ideas expressed simply. The Rondo begins in the strict imitation of a canon of the fifth below.
Sonatensatz in G-minor, K. 312 (Allegro)
This too is late work. The Kochel number (312) erroneously situates it in Munich around 1776. Alan Tyson proposes 1790. Alfred Einstein writes: “…the Allegro in G-minor, K-312, which I myself dated quite mistakenly alas, when I placed it among the Munich sonatas.”
G-minor is, for Mozart, a dramatic or tragic key, as in the Symphony No. 40 and the String Quintet, K. 516. The movement’s unisons, its diminished intervals, the forlorn E-flat/D motive, the spareness of the scoring—corroborate the date 1790. The broken chords of the second subject and of the development section sound improvisatory. I am reminded here of C. P. E. Bach, an association rarely arising from Mozart’s work. Qualities that reach out—virtuosity, fullness of sound—are replaced here by the inward: by more isolated sound, by falling intervals, by a stripping-away to the structural bones of the composition.
We are hearing Mozart’s late style.
Mozart Complete Piano Sonatas, Volume 4 was recorded in 2001 and originally published in 2003 by Connoisseur Society.