Mozart - Sonata for Piano 4 hands K.521 (1787)/K.497(1786)

Mozart

- Sonata for Piano 4 hands in C major, K.521 (1787)

1. Allegro
2. Andante
3. Allegretto

Ingrid Haebler & Ludwig Hoffmann, piano

Description by Brian Robins [-]
The Sonata in C is Mozart's final essay in a form he had made very much made his own. His earliest duet sonata, K. 19d in C major, dates from 1765 and is the only survivor of several probably composed during his childhood years for him and his sister Nannerl to play during the tours they were taken on by their father Leopold. It dates from 1787, being entered by Mozart in his thematic catalog on May 29 of that year. The same day he sent a copy of it to his friend Baron Gottfried von Jacquin with a covering letter requesting that he should give it to his sister Franziska, a pupil for whom he had composed the piano part in the Trio for Clarinet, Viola and Piano in E flat major, K. 498. Mozart asks Jacquin to give his sister the sonata "with my compliments and tell her to tackle it at once, for it is rather difficult." Mozart subsequently dedicated the sonata to two sisters, Babette and Marianne (Nanette) Nortrop, the daughters of a wealthy Viennese merchant and possibly also pupils. Uniquely among his duet sonatas, the autograph manuscript specifically designates cembalo primo and cembalo secondo (first and second piano), leading Mozart's biographer Einstein to conjecture that the sonata would gain from being played on two pianos. Both the opening and closing movements are of exceptional brilliance, lending weight to Mozart's assertion that the sonata is "rather difficult." As with its immediate predecessor, the F major Sonata, K. 497, both parts are equally demanding, with little of the concertante character evident in the earlier duet sonatas. The work may have been published in Paris in late in 1789 and was also included in a series of keyboard works by various composers issued by the Viennese publisher Hoffmeister between 1785 and 1787.

 

Sonata for piano, 4 hands in F major, K. 497 (1786)

1. Adagio - Allegro di molto (0:00)
2. Andante (9:47)
3. Allegro (18:35)

Ingrid Haebler & Ludwig Hoffmann, piano

Description by James Leonard
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart entered his Sonata for piano duet in F major, K. 497, into his personal catalog of works on August 1, 1786, 12 years after he had composed his last sonata for piano duet. Prior to 1786, he had composed three sonatas for piano duet for himself and his sister. But after he left Salzburg for Vienna, Mozart no longer had his sister at hand, and his production of duet sonatas abruptly stopped. Indeed, he was to write only one more sonata in 1787 for piano duet before he stopped writing piano duets altogether. The four-movement Sonata in F major is in the form of a church sonata opening with an Adagio followed by an Allegro di molto, an Andante, and an unmarked closing movement that is self-evidently an Allegro. Although the virtuoso technique and witty dialogue of the players is as elegant as earlier, the tender charm of his youthful music is replaced by a more self-consciously bright and brilliant elegance of his mature music.