Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 - 1791)
Fantasia in C Minor, K. 475
Sonata in C Minor, K. 457
Sonata in A Major, K. 331 (3001)
Ah, vous dirai-je, maman K. 265 (300e)
(Twelve variations on a French song)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in 1756, the youngest child and only
surviving son of Leopold Mozart. distinguished as the author of a book on
violin-playing, published in the year of his son's birth, and a member of the
music establishment of the ruling Archbishop of Salzburg. Leopold Mozart soon
realised that his son had exceptional gifts and saw it as his duty to do
everything to foster these, sacrificing his own career as a composer to do so.
He was appointed Vice Kapellmeister in Salzburg, a position he retained until
his death in 1787.
As a boy Mozart travelled widely, performing as a keyboard-player, with
his eider sister Nannerl, before kings and queens, the nobility and the merely
curious throughout Europe, demonstrating not only precocious technical
accomplishments but his growing ability as a composer, at first in
improvisation, a necessary part of his art. He also played the violin, an
instrument of which he made little later serious professional use once he had
left Salzburg. Journeys to Italy widened still further Mozart's experience, with
commissions for operas in Milan, then under Austrian suzerainty. Adolescence in
Salzburg, where a new Archbishop had succeeded the family's earlier, more
indulgent patron in 1772, was frustrating. The new Archbishop, a supporter of
the ecclesiastical reforms of the Emperor, had clear ideas of the duties of
those in his service, with the result that Mozart, denied permission to travel,
in 1777 resigned in order to seek his fortune elsewhere, a process that brought
musical but not material benefit, as he dawdled in Mannheim and tried to prove
himself in Paris. Early in 1779, his ambitions unsatisfied, he returned to
Salzburg, still as Konzertmeister, but with the additional position of court
organist.
Late in 1780 Mozart was in Munich for the production of his opera Idomeneo, commissioned by the Elector and
involving many of his friends from Mannheim. From there he was summoned to
Vienna to join his patron but deprived of w hat he saw as an opportunity for
advancement in the service of the Emperor, he quarrelled openly with the
Archbishop and was dismissed. For the next ten years he remained in Vienna,
distinguishing himself at first as a performer, a composer and as a teacher,
but finding increasing difficulties in supporting himself and the dowerless wife
he had taken in 1782 from an income that was variable, as fashions came and
went.
The decade in Vienna gave Mozart the opportunity he had long desired in
the opera-house, with a successful German opera in 1772, the Singspiel Die Entführung aus dem Serail, followed by
the Italian operas Le nozze di Figaro in
1786 and Don Giovanni in the following year. 1790 brought Cost fan tutte and 1791 the opera seria La clemenza di Tito and the
German Singspiel Die Zauberflöte,
a magic opera that was drawing audiences at a suburban theatre at the time of
the composer's sudden death on 5th December. Vienna allowed Mozart a further
opportunity as a composer and performer with a series of piano concertos
included in subscription concerts he arranged, while he was in endless demand,
particularly in his earlier years in the capital, as a keyboard-player in
private and public concerts.
The later 18th century brought, among many other technical
developments, a change in keyboard instruments in domestic and concert use. The
harpsichord, the principal instrument in domestic and concert use, was
gradually replaced by the fortepiano, with its hammer action and increased
dynamic range. The instruments that Mozart used were capable of the most
delicate articulation, more limited in range than the modern pianoforte, but
representing the highest technical achievement of makers such as Stein and
Walter, the former of whom, who had experimented with a coupled
fortepiano-cum-harpsichord, made for Mozart a pedal fortepiano, valued in his estate
of 80 florins, less than a third of his outstanding tailor's bill.
Mozart entered the C Minor Sonata,
K. 457, in his own catalogue of compositions on 14th October 1784.
The C Minor Fantasia, K. 475, was
entered on 20th May 1785. The first published edition, however, issued by
Artaria and advertised on 5th December 1785, announces a Fantaisie et Sonata
Pour le Fortepiano and is dedicated to Madame Therese de Trattnern, the wife of
Mozart's then landlord in Vienna, Johann Thomas von Trattner, and a pupil of
Mozart. The Fantasia, at least, seems to have formed part of the composer's
programme at his concert in Leipzig on 12th May 1789, an event that brought
applause and glory but little material profit. The coupling of Fantasia and
Sonata was clearly not on I y sanctioned by Mozart but represented his original
intention, as is apparent from the musical connection between the two.
The Fantasia, recalling
in more than its choice of key the great C
minor Piano Concerto, opens with a dramatic slow introduction.
Leading through various shifts of key to an Allegro, a B flat Andantino and a
conclusion that returns to the key and material of the opening. The following
sonata, possibly the greatest of Mozart's keyboard sonatas, and one that leads
the way to a completely new approach to the form, opens with the notes of the
triad, poignantly answered. There is major slow movement with a principal theme
worthy of Figaro's Countess and passages of technical virtuosity, leading to a
C minor final rondo that avoids any temptation to follow the convention of a
change to the major mode in its conclusion and explores the lowest ranges of
the instrument, its principal theme framing episodes contrasting in key and
character. The Fantasia and Sonata come at the height of Mozart's career as a
performer, a fact that accounts for the technical demands made on the player
and for the depth of feeling implicit in the musical contents of the work.
The A major Sonata, K. 331,
belongs to a brighter world and is among the best known of Mozart's keyboard
sonatas. Its first movement theme has found its way even into orchestral
repertoire with Max Reger's monumental Variations
and Fugue on a theme of Mozart while the last has enjoyed an
independent existence under the hands of many a tiro and was even used by the
composer's friends Stephen Storace in his pasticcio opera The Siege of
Belgrade, staged at Drury Lane in London in 1791. In a letter completed on 12th
June 1784 and written from Vienna to his father in Salzburg Mozart mentions a set
of three keyboard sonatas that he had earlier sent home to his sister and that
were then being engraved by the publisher Artaria, who advertised them for sale
in August of the same year. It is thought that the sonatas were written either
in Vienna or in Salzburg during the course of 1783 rather than at any earlier
date.
The gentle pastoral lilt of the theme of the first movement of the A
major Sonata is followed by six variations that include a third in the key of A
minor, a fourth with hand-crossing, a very considerable feature of the C minor
Sonata, a fifth Adagio and a final Allegro. The second movement is a Minuet,
with a D major Trio, and this is followed by the famous Rondo alla Turca, a
form of popular exoticism that bears little relation to the kind of music
Vienna under Turkish siege had heard at its gates a hundred years before.
The twelve variations on the French song Ah, vous dirai-je Maman, K.265, were probably written during
Mozart's stay in Paris in 1778, one of three such sets of variations based on
French themes at that time. Improvised variations were a standard element in
any performer's repertoire and some of the sets of Mozart variations are known
to have been improvised in the first instance. The song Ah, vous dirai-je Maman, well known in
Paris at least since 1761, is better known to English-speaking listeners as Twinkle, twinkle, little star, and in any
case bears a remarkable similarity to the nursery rhyme Baa, baa, black sheep.
Under any name it was among the most popular melodies for variation in the
later 18th century. Mozart's variations include, as they should, a minor
variation, the eighth of the set, an Adagio, the eleventh, and a final Allegro.
Jeno Jandó
Jeno Jandó was born at Pécs, in south Hungary, in 1952. He started to
learn the piano when he was seven and later studied at the Ferenc Liszt Academy
of Music under Katalin Nemes and pal Kadosa, becoming assistant to the latter
on his graduation in 1974. Jandó has won a number of piano competitions in
Hungary and abroad, including first prize in the 1973 Hungarian Piano Concours
and a first prize in the chamber music category at the Sydney International
Piano Competition in 1977. In addition to his many appearances in Hungary, he
has played widely abroad in Eastern and Western Europe, in Canada and in Japan.
He is currently engaged in a project to record all of Mozart's piano
concertos for Naxos. Other recordings for the Naxos label include the concertos
of Grieg and Schumann as well as Rachmaninov's Second
Concerto and Paganini Rhapsody
and Beethoven's complete piano sonatas.