Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Masterpieces in Minor Keys

Description

A number of stereotypes surround the figure of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and many of them have entered the domain of popular culture. Among the most difficult to dispel are the ideas of Mozart as the eternal child, Mozart the buffoon (this stereotype has been sadly reinforced by the caricature of Mozart presented in the award-winning movie Amadeus), Mozart the composer who wrote effortlessly. As with all myths, there is a grain of truth in these images; but they are very partial, limited perspectives on a multifaceted genius, whose personality was complex, whose character was at times contradictory, whose soul could embrace the sublime and the scurrile, the mystical and the Hanswurst-like comedy, the Freemasonic and the Catholic.
Certainly, Mozart’s catalogue encompasses works such as Ein Musikalischer Spass or the duet of the two Papagenos, but there is much more in it. If many people are familiar with the lightness of Eine kleine Nachtmusik or the comic verve of Non più andrai, and others know the Requiem only for the dark legend surrounding it (and undermining the posthumous reputation of poor Salieri), there is much more in it as well. The Requiem, just as the darkest episodes of Don Giovanni, speaks a part of Mozart’s mind, soul, sensitivity, and experience; and it would be entirely inappropriate to forget about it or to consider it as an occasional outburst.
Mozart knew that the human soul has many obscure corners; that there are mysterious fields which may be the gateway for the heights of sublimity and mysticism, but may also disclose unknown and dangerous lands. Mozart was a child of the Enlightenment, but was a true artist and a true man, who knew all too well that rationality alone cannot explain everything about the human being. He certainly liked well-proportioned works, properly balanced phrases, joyful or funny moods; but some of his masterpieces are daring explorations of sadness, melancholy, and tragedy. This Da Vinci Classics album takes listeners into such paths, inviting them to gaze into the depths of darkness and sublimity.
The recording artist, Carmelo Giudice, has painstakingly researched into the original versions of the pieces, particularly through careful analysis of the autograph manuscripts (when available); the following notes intertwine his own indications with commentaries by the author of these liner notes.
The A-minor Sonata was composed in Paris in the summer of 1778, immediately following the death of Mozart’s mother. The manuscript underwent a series of precarious circumstances before being acquired by the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York. It was later published in facsimile by Schott/Universal Edition.
The journey to Paris was one of Mozart’s first “adventures” as a young man – it was the first time ever he was travelling without his father. It is all too easy to see in the minor mode of this Sonata an echo of his mourning for the beloved mother. It is also very common to interpret the opening dotted rhythm in the fashion of a military march. Instead, it is more clearly understood as an opera seria scene. The initial rhythm is similar to a martial call, but is much closer to a declamato singing; it is the musical setting of a settenario line, one of the favourite meters of the Italian poesia per musica, of the librettos as composed by Metastasio or others. Similarly, the long strings of semiquavers are not “just” virtuoso or brilliant passages, but rather expressions of a common belief of the time. It connected virtuosity with virtue: the great characters of Italian opera seria – such as gods, goddesses, heroes, and the likes – vented their sublime sentiments through pearly chains of vocalizes, whose impervious difficulty corresponded to their otherworldly, superhuman status.
The second movement has an even more openly operatic nature, with its solemn – and at the same time tender – gestures; it alternates majestic openings with timid nuances, and here too it is always possible to underscore the melodic lines with Italian verses, with their regular patterns and their sweet accentuation. Written in the Sonata form (which is in se an unusual trait for a slow movement), it has another singular aspect: it encompasses a section with a completely different mood and style, very Sturm und Drang, and possibly mirroring Mozart’s shock at the loss of his mother.
The concluding Presto, in turn, has a thematic structure which is closely modelled and patterned upon the structures of operatic librettos – in this case, ottonario verses: just as in Dove sono i bei momenti, one of the Countess’ finest arias in the later Nozze di Figaro (but also L’ho perduta, me meschina, the sobbing aria of the child Barbarina).
Opera is ingrained also in the D-minor Fantasy, KV 385g (397). Its manuscript has been lost. The primary sources are a first posthumous printed edition from 1804, which presents the work in an incomplete state (breaking off at measure 97), and a subsequent edition published by Breitkopf in 1806, which includes the same piece with an additional ten measures, likely completed by August Eberhard Müller.
The piece opens with a dark evocation of low-pitched arpeggios, in the key of D minor – just as the Requiem and Don Giovanni, but also as one of the two minor-key Piano Concertos, i.e. the wonderful and sublime KV 466. From these and on these, the main theme surfaces. It is a sighing melody, this time in novenario verses. Proper sighs (“sospiri”) punctuate the tune, which is further fragmented by virtuoso passages (whose meaning explores, once more, the nexus between virtuosity and virtue), and by menacing repeated notes. It is not too far-fetched to imagine an anticipation of the terrifying apparition of the Commendatore; it is almost a Mozartean version of the fate, destiny, or doom motif found in many of Beethoven’s works. The reprise of the main theme leads to its “death” – a death preceded by a few touching, moving last breaths. The work’s “resurrection” is the concluding Allegretto (although we cannot be certain that Mozart intended this section to be the last of the incomplete work). Here – as Paul Badura Skoda liked to tell his students – we have a glimpse of Heaven, of Paradise; a Paradise which, in Mozart’s eyes, is full of childlike joy (and here the stereotype of Mozart as the eternal child comes to the fore, but perhaps not entirely inappropriately).
The other minor-mode Sonata follows, i.e. KV 457 in C minor. Composed in Vienna in October 1784, this sonata was published by Artaria in December 1785 alongside the Fantasia KV 475. The manuscript passed through various hands around the world until it was finally acquired by the Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum, where it is now accessible for consultation and available in facsimile.
Both the first and the last movement have their main themes based on the C-minor triad. The first movement adopts it in the ascending form, followed by questioning semi phrases; the second theme is much lighter and almost playful. The second movement is once more in the style of an operatic aria. Here, among other elements, we are given a lesson in the art of ornamentation, since versions exist where Mozart elucidates the many melodic profiles that the theme can assume, when clothed in manifold ornamented styles.
A lesson in the art of rubato is found in the last movement. Leopold Mozart, Wolfgang’s father, had written a treatise, published in the same year of his son’s birth (1756) where, amid many other aspects, he discussed how to practise rubato. Whereas today a good accompanist is one who can guess the soloist’s tempo wavering, and follow it, in Mozart’s time a good accompanist was able to keep the beat steady, while the soloist anticipated or followed it. In this third movement, Mozart writes down a rubato effect, which produces an anxious, breathtaking experience.
This Sonata is frequently heard in combination with Fantasia KV 475, composed in Vienna in May 1785 and published by Artaria in December 1785 together with it. The manuscript was long thought to be lost before being rediscovered and acquired by the Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum, where it is now available for consultation and in facsimile. Although Artaria published it in a single volume together with the Sonata KV 457, this work is entirely independent and bears no direct relation to the aforementioned sonata.
The main theme – which opens and closes the work – is particularly tortuous and complex, with intense chromaticism and deep sighs. It is juxtaposed to many other sections; some are tender, others cheerful; in still others, all the topoi of tragedy in opera seria are displayed (tremolos, ostinatos, descending bass lines…). The work is interspersed with virtuoso passages (once more, symbolizing greatness) and sudden breaks.
Two other wonderful pieces follow, dating from the same Viennese period as the C-minor works. It was the period when Mozart was active as a freelance composer in Vienna and hungered for operas. The A-minor Rondo, KV 511, was composed in Vienna on March 11, 1787, and published by Hoffmeister in Vienna in April of the same year. The manuscript is privately owned and located in Switzerland. A facsimile edition of the manuscript, edited by Hans Gál, is available from Schott/Universal Edition. Its main theme is a masterpiece in itself, with its delicate gestures, its hesitating chromatic ascents, its broken phrases. The opening gruppetto (turn) becomes a motif of its own, and is found also in the responding, juxtaposed, major-mode sections. A particularity of the astonishingly beautiful and clean autograph of this Rondo is the presence of a profusion of performance indications – well beyond Mozart’s usual standard – which make this piece not only exceptional, but also a paradigm for the interpretation of other keyboard works by the composer.
An even more enigmatic mood is that of the B-minor Adagio, KV 540. Composed in Vienna on March 19, 1788, and published by Hoffmeister in Vienna. The manuscript is preserved at the Stiftelsen Musikkulturens Främjande Library in Stockholm. It is a nearly-Romantic piece, where the “Classical” style values are already being overturned by a more sentimental, at times even irrational, sensitivity.
The album is completed by some bonus tracks. The Marche funèbre del Signor Maestro Contrapunto, KV 453a was composed in Vienna in the spring of 1784 for Mozart’s pupil, Barbara Ployer. Erroneously excluded from the Köchel catalog for a long time, it is now recognized as an authentic composition by Mozart. Here the sublime and the comical intertwine; without its title, it is a perfectly serious piece, but the ironic Italian title turns it into a parody. Likely composed in Vienna in 1790, the Sonatensatz in G minor, KV 312, is an Allegro in sonata form, authentic yet incomplete. In the manuscript, measures 111–145 were added by an unknown hand, but in a manner entirely consistent with the stylistic framework established by Mozart in the original sections (measures 1–110 and 146–178).
Chiara Bertoglio © 2025