Mozart C major Piano Sonata, K545, now in D major for String Quintet or String Orchestra

[Transposed into D major]

You can find the music on this page of the IMSLP (via the transcription tab).

Mozart entered his 16th Piano Sonata into his catalog in 1788, and indicated that it was a piece for beginner pianists. It wasn't published until 1805, fourteen years after Mozart's death. I was really surprised to see how well its charms transfer to strings when transposed into the string-friendly key of D major. I hope my affection for this piece is contagious, and hope that someone might share a video of a performance online.

Mozart K 310

The Mozart A minor Piano Sonata, K 310 is a wonder. I have loved listening to it on recordings, particularly Dinu Lipatti's 1950 recording, which I first "met" when I was twenty, and have listened to hundreds of times. It is the last piece in the first volume of the Henle edition. A crown on top of a case of jewels.

Instead of reading through it and admiring it from a purely aspirational state (wouldn't it be nice to be able to play this like a pianist would), I find myself practicing it. Through practicing it I find myself learning about how to play the piano. For me that means consciously connecting with all my fingers, not just the strong ones, and it also means paying attention to fingering. The notes don't play themselves, after all.

Paying attention in this way means moving beyond my usual game of "blind man's bluff," and onto a new "game" of seeing if I can play a given phrase comfortably all the way through, and trying to connect my two hands together through the piano.

I'm interested to see if I can replicate what I accomplished this morning later today.

Mozart on the Piano

A week or two ago I opened my neglected two-volume set of Mozart Piano Sonatas, and now I find that I have fallen into a new habit. Sure, we all know that Mozart was a great composer, but in some way it feels that when I am playing his piano music I am able to understand more about why he was a great composer.

I have absolutely no desire to play this music for anyone except myself, and I take all of the deviations from expectations dictated through what we have come to call the Viennese classical style as special gifts given to people who accept them as such.

Through my daily meetings with Mozart's musical mind I have come to learn more about music than I thought I did, particularly because playing the piano is and has always been a struggle for me. I never had the early "training" that allows the hands to, as one of my young violin students who also plays piano says, "know what they are doing," though the time I spent learning to play scales with both hands together in parallel motion when was in piano class at Juilliard (with Frances Goldstein) has stuck with me over the decades. Well, some of the scales.

Playing piano will always be a matter of translation for me, and I know that it will never feel like a musical mother tongue. I have also come to understand that it doesn't matter as long as I can derive personal pleasure out of playing, and can continue to grow as a musician.

But I have to confess. I sometimes have a physical urge to play. I often wake up in the morning with Mozart piano music in my head, and the deep desire to play and shape it with my hands. Playing the piano every day (and playing Mozart every day) seems to fill in gaps in my psyche and my spirit.

What a gift Mozart gave to us in his piano music.

UPDATE: While looking for Mozart posts and piano posts to tag on this blog, I came across this. If it's November it must be Mozart indeed!

Gottfried van Swieten, a person I would like to have known

In my wonderings about Haydn's Opus 20 Quartets, and the relationship that Mozart and Haydn had in Vienna, I have been thinking about Gottfried van Swieten. Baron Gottfried van Swieten was the son of Gerhard van Swieten, Empress Maria Theresa's private physician, who also held the position of director of the court library in Vienna.

Gottfried had a career as a diplomat, and spent seven years (1770-1777) in Berlin working as an ambassador for Frederick the Great, the King of Prussia. While he was at Frederick's court, van Swieten spent a good deal of time studying music. He had the great fortune to study with a student of J.S. Bach.

By the late 1770s Frederick's interest in music had waned considerably. I sometimes wonder if Frederick might have given van Swieten his music library when van Sweeten left for Vienna in 1777. We know from a letter Mozart wrote to his father in 1782 that the Baron invited Haydn and Mozart to his home every week to play manuscripts of music by Handel, J.S. Bach, and Bach's sons.

The historical record is sparse, but the musical record is rich. The Haydn Quartet Opus 20, no. 2 has material in it that sounds strikingly baroque, and three of the Opus 20 Quartets have fugues as their last movements. I wonder if Haydn and van Swieten might have know one another during the early 1770s, and I wonder whether Haydn, who was a well-known composer, might have been introduced to J.S. Bach's unpublished music by van Swieten earlier than the historical record shows.

When van Swieten returned to Vienna in 1777 he took over his late father's position as court librarian. And then he invented the card catalog.

Yes. The card catalog!



But he is best known as an important patron of contemporary composers like Gluck, C.P.E. Bach, Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven (Beethoven dedicated his First Symphony to van Swieten). Van Swieten also supported revivals of out-of-fashion composers like Lully, Handel, and J.S. Bach. He also wrote music himself.

If It's November, It Must Be Mozart

I spent some of August, all of September, and a few weeks of October playing through Haydn's Piano Sonatas in order to learn something about piano playing and something about Haydn. I learned a great deal, and had a wonderful time doing so. I have decided to spend the month of November playing through the Mozart Piano Sonatas. Yesterday I played the first, and today I played the second.

Now, with this little bit of experience, I understand why pianists love Mozart so much. These Sonatas simply feel good under the hands, and it is so easy to play expressively without having to do anything physically unnatural. What a treat this is! And it's a treat that anyone with a keyboard and minimal piano skills (thanks to nearly three months of daily practice I can finally trill with one hand and play an Alberti Bass with the other) can give him or herself. And the music is even available for free in the IMSLP.

Perhaps some readers might like to join me in this adventure! The word "Movember" has already been taken by people who are capable of growing facial hair, so, perhaps those of us who enjoy playing the piano can have our own "Movember" by playing Mozart every day. Of course people who play other instruments are welcome to join, though there would have to be considerable repetition to fill all 30 days of November (not that there's anything wrong with that).

If you're a man, you could do both. Grow a beard and play Mozart. I imagine that at some time in his life Mozart might have had some facial hair.