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“Elizabeth Rich seems to have fathomed, to have made sense of these sonatas like few other pianists. These performances open portals to Mozart I’ve never heard before. Amazing musicianship – a coherency wherein each idea organically flows from the one preceding with wit and both musical and emotional logic. Again the absolute emotional certainty, intelligence, truth… Elizabeth Rich belongs among an exalted few.” – Stereo Times
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Program Notes by Elizabeth Rich
The sonatas on this disc are Mozart’s last. Even though Mozart was only 35 at his death (in 1791), they are late works – in the sense that we speak of late Beethoven or Rembrandt or Titian. Their compositional mastery is supreme; it is expressed in fewer tones. “Distillation” and “spiritualization” are words that attempt to describe late style. From Mozart’s K. 284 on, the richness and brilliance of his keyboard writing has increased: one is reminded of the orchestra, the concerto. But in the last sonatas, we are often hearing fewer – sometimes only two – voices. The last movements are “allegretto” (a little “allegro”) lacking the brilliance of “allegro”. It is as though more notes have been transformed and compressed into fewer – expressing, often, a different kind of lyricism, a turning inward rather than a reaching out. As in late Beethoven, the sound itself changes.
Bach’s music was generally unknown at the time but in the 1780’s Mozart had found Bach manuscripts (including The Art of the Fugue and copies of The Well-Tempered Clavier) at the home of Baron von Swieten, Director of the Imperial Court Library. We hear the influence of Bach in Mozart’s contrapuntal motion and imitation: in canon, in bass entrances and the passing of melodies between voices.
In addition to the last three sonatas this disc contains Beethoven’s Pathétique Sonata. It is here because it is – along with much else – Beethoven’s homage to Mozart’s C-minor Sonata K. 457 and Fantasia K. 475 (on Disc 4).
Sonata in F-major, K. 547a (1788?)
This sonata, as K. 547, also exists “for piano and a violin” where the two movements are preceded by an Andante. The violin part in K. 547 is, in any case, sparse (“for a beginner”) and the version for piano solo seems both the original conception and more wonderful. The theme for the variations is marked “Andante” in the violin version but “Allegretto” for solo piano. There are six variations. The theme itself exemplifies the exchanging of voices in late Mozart: thus the dissonant seventh of the first beat’s tenor resolves in the soprano of the 2nd measure whence the bass picks it up. These complex and distilled relationships among few tones which sound simple, contribute to that particular luminous sound of late Mozart. Variation 1 is quickened by sixteenths; in Var. 2, the lower register comes alive; Var. 3 adds new chromaticisms; Var. 4 has a bassoon-like humor; Var. 5 is a canon and in the minor. In the last variation it is as though this complicated music dissolves into the triads and tones from which it grew.
Alfred Einstein concurs that these “variations, above all, are among the masterpieces of Mozart’s ‘last style’.”
Sonata in B-flat major, K. 570 (1789)
Einstein calls this “perhaps the most completely rounded one of them all, the ideal piano sonata.”
The form of the first movement is economical: its seeming simplicity is actually radical, an experiment. A theme introduced (M.21) turns out part of the transition to the 2nd subject; which turns out to present the 1st subject on the dominant. Continuing, it uses material from the transition. Our expectations thus are subverted, surprised. The opening theme is in unison; the writing throughout is slender; the (beautiful) bones show in this composition. A quality of late lyricism overlies the abrupt changes.
The serious slow movement is marked “Adagio,” not Mozart’s more usual “Andante.” There are two alternating sections between returns to the opening (Rondo form) and a Coda. Such codas pick up and go over tonal events in the movement and bring them to rest: thus their summing-up quality.
The form of the Allegretto is unusual: An opening section (A) in B-flat in “a b a” leads to (B) also in B-flat and in “a b a,” which leads to (C) in E-flat and “a b” which leads to a transition back to (A), followed by a coda using (C)’s theme. The imitations of “C” are humorously contrapuntal; its chromaticisms seem to play with “wrong” tones. Mozart has been writing fugues thanks to the Bach manuscripts seen at Baron von Swieten’s. Here he plays with fugal writing.
Sonata in D-major, K. 576 (1789)
In the spring of 1789, Mozart had journeyed to Prussia, hoping to find greater appreciation there than from the royal family in Vienna. Letter to Michael Puchberg, July 12-14th:
I am composing 6 easy piano sonatas for Princess Frederlike and 6 quartets for the King…
Three of the quartets were written but only this one sonata; it was never sent to the princess, and isn’t easy! On his journey, Mozart had passed through Leipzig where Bach worked and had scribbled a wonderful 3-voiced Gigue in the album of the Court Organist. This sonata too is full of tributes to Bach.
In the first movement, the opening theme immediately repeats itself with canonic imitations. The dominant reached, the same theme takes off in wider, wilder canons. The key centers of the development section include B-flat, and F-sharp! The King of Prussia was a cellist: the neighboring D-major Quartet, K. 575 features an unusually prominent cello part for him and in this sonata too, the pianist’s left hand is often a duet partner.
Einstein writes of “the deep longing and consolation of the adagio.” The form is as in K. 570.
The Allegretto, too, uses its first theme as a second subject – but here with the interpolation of a commenting counter subject; the half steps and the resulting chromaticism come to the fore. The lyrical closing theme uses these half steps; their second-subject contrapuntal use is extended in the middle section of this Rondo, giving it development-section quality.
Sonata Pathétique in C minor, Op. 13 (1799)
Ludwig van Beethoven
In the notes to Mozart’s Sonata in C-min., K. 457 and Fantasy, K. 475 (Disc 4), I wrote that there was no doubt of Beethoven’s inspiration since he uses the second theme of Mozart’s adagio as the opening of his own. An acknowledgment and an homage.
Mozart: 2nd theme of Adagio
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Beethoven: theme of Adagio
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But there is more. The idea for the short Grave introduction to the first movement comes out of the Fantasy, 12 minutes in length, written to precede Mozart’s sonata. (The Mozart is altogether much longer and larger in form than the Beethoven. We are comparing astonishing early Beethoven with astonishing Mozart at the height of his powers.) Referring to another C-minor Mozart work, the Piano Concerto, K. 491, Beethoven at around this time exclaimed to Ferdinand Ries:
Such ideas will never occur to the likes of us.
The bass line of the opening of the Mozart Fantasy moves in a long descent to the strange F-sharp; the bass in Beethoven’s Grave also descends to F-sharp. (Again, it is short and the descent quicker.) The opening of the Grave – its intervals, diminished chords, (prominent E-flat, D), the dramatic forte/pianos and rests, and its sequence – reflect the same in the opening of Mozart’s Fantasy. The Mozart sonata features extremity of register and long scales connecting registers throughout its movements: such scales are also notable in the Beethoven: the first is at the end of the Grave. Mozart’s 1st movement is “Molto Allegro”; Beethoven’s, “Allegro molto e con brio.” The 2nd theme in Mozart is a dialogue between treble and bass using crossed hands; hands must cross even more quickly in the same place in Beethoven’s dialogue. In Mozart a rising closing theme follows; so too, in Beethoven. The development sections diverge, and also the endings. What was a fully composed fantasy in Mozart becomes a single page introduction in Beethoven, and this Grave returns at the beginning of the development section and before the ending: that is, the material of the Grave must be integrated into the Allegro. (This is an early example of Beethoven’s interest in cyclic form). To be inspired is to find new workings-out! Beethoven’s include much emphasis of the A-flat/G found in the Fantasy, and Mozart’s outer movements; a middle movement in that very A-flat; a relation between its theme and that of his 3rd movement and – at the end of that last movement – a return of the memory of the Adagio theme, in A-flat (paralleling the cyclic returns of the first movement).
What a beautiful flowering Beethoven developed out of Mozart’s motive in the Adagio (the famous theme). It reminds me of Beethoven’s sketches later for the slow movement of the C-minor Fifth Symphony, where what had been a sequence is delayed and spun out unforgettably.
In the 3rd movement, certain moments appear to show study of Mozart: for example, the abrupt pivot of the B-flat chord leading to the 2nd (E-flat) section and the change to E-flat minor (bar 57 in Mozart, bar 30 in Beethoven). The brilliant downward scale before the first return may reflect the brilliance in the analogous place in Mozart. The name “Pathétique” was given by the publisher, probably in response to its new and passionate piano style. The pathos of Beethoven’s last movement seems mixed with humor; Mozart’s is more tragic.
For reasons of space and context, my remarks on Opus 13 have focused on its relation to Mozart, curtailing description of other aspects of this beloved work. It is, of course, beloved with reason! There is another omission. Anton Schindler, Beethoven’s student, and biographer, (“Beethoven as I Knew Him”) writes, apropos publishers:
In the first and second movements of the Sonate Pathétique… great numbers of the execution marks were omitted that are truly necessary not merely for colouring but for accurate performance.
And in an Appendix, Schindler gives us execution marks; fermatas; caesuras; certain changes of tempo and additional dynamics. Tried out, these marks turn out to be beautiful: enhancing the structure of the composition and making its imaginative power clearer. You may hear my attempt to follow these markings in this performance.
Mozart Complete Piano Sonatas, Volume 5 was recorded in 2002 and originally published by Connoisseur Society in 2005.