Das Klavier, part 5. From: Mozart. Sein Charakter, sein Werk, by Alfred Einstein. (Zürich, Stuttgart 31953, S. 275-291. Permalink: www.zeno.org. Lizenz: Verwaist.)
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Scores and recordings are available online in the excellent Digital Mozart Edition.
(A Project of the Mozarteum Foundation Salzburg and the Packard Humanities Institute.)
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Mozart. The Piano [5].
… For less accomplished students than Frau von Trattnern, Mozart composed rondos. An example is the work in D major (K. 485) of January 10, 1786, written for a young woman from Würm (or Würben). We already noted this strange piece as a tribute to C.P.E. and J.C. Bach, with the rondo theme taken from Mozart’s piano quartet (K. 478) in g minor.
A similar work appeared in June (1786), a “little rondo” in F major (K. 494), to which Mozart added an allegro and andante on January 3, 1788 (K. 533). The three were combined to form a sonata. Mozart was in debt to Hoffmeister, his friend and publisher; and we suppose this work was a partial payment. As for a so-called stylistic unity, Mozart showed no consideration. The movements written later are marked by a power of harmonic-polyphonic conception, a depth of expression and harmonic decisiveness, which are found only in his final works; and are really conceived for another, more powerful instrument than the modest rondo. This piece mainly holds to the instrument’s middle register, and only for Hoffmeister’s printed version did Mozart add a contrapuntal cadence and a conclusion employing the lower range. Still, even the rondo, with its beautiful three-part “obbligato” in minor, is so rich and well-wrought that an uninitiated listener would not notice the break in style. It is a mark of the dullness of many 19th and 20th century “publishers” that the rondo and the two preceding movements are still presented separately.
Mozart: Piano Sonata No. 15 in F Major, K. 533/494 – 1. Allegro
Sonata No. 15 in F Major, K. 533/494 – 2. Andante
Sonata No. 15 in F Major, K. 533/494 – 3. Rondo. Allegretto
If the rondo K. 494 was useful as a final movement, this was not possible with the Rondo in a minor (K. 511), of March 11, 1787. Hoffmeister also published this work separately. We recognize here the sheer depth of sensitivity, stylistic perfection, and the minor-major play of light and darkness, when comparing it to the A flat major rondo, K. 205 Anh. This other work is presented in many editions under the title “Romance”, under Mozart’s authorship; or better, haunted by his name, as the rondo is only pleasant and “Mozartian”. In these later years, Mozart’s problem was the integration of the “galant” and the “learned”; of the deepening of the galant through “work”, but not too obviously. Thus I believe a sonata movement in B flat (Anh. 136) to be genuine – [although] the Leipzig Thomaskantor (music director) August Eberhard Müller silently took over the composition. We suppose it was, eventually, too late to admit or explain the partial falsifying or mystifying of this matter for the public. The events might have happened in the following way.
Konstanze, who was always glad to hand off her spouse’s fragments, had one of these – the beginning of a larger work [the B flat piano sonata movement Anh. 136] – sent to the Leipzig publisher Thonus for appraisal. Thonus had Müller expand the work, for which he used the lost, first minuet from “Eine kleine Nachtmusik” ( — only God knows how it came to him); and with two additional works by Müller sent the group into the world under Mozart’s name.
The B flat movement (Anh. 136) shows Mozart on the path to the last sonata in D major (K. 576). It is an attempt to use both hands in a galant-contrapuntal interplay; an attempt that is “overworked”, too doctrinaire, or forced – such that one does not want to accept Mozart would leave it this way. But that he was involved with the work, perhaps as with the sonata movement K. 400, seems beyond doubt. Even in the “Little Sonata for Beginners” (K. 545), in the “easiest” key of C major – strangely enough, not published in Mozart’s lifetime although used for introductory-level instruction – the rondo begins, humorously, with “strict imitation” with a “canon a perfect fifth below”.
Also, we can refer to one of Mozart’s most inspired works, the “Little Sonata” in B flat (K. 570), from February 1789, perhaps the most balanced example of his piano sonata ideal. Here the humorous counterpoint of the finale openly indicates something (more) secret, that informs the entire work. [ … ]
[To be continued.]
Translation by Edward Eggleston.
