Wolfgang David, Violinist - Progam Notes

Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart

Sonata in G major K 301 (1778)

Allegro con spirito
Allegro

Biography

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Program Notes

One of the unusual features of Mozart's youth was that so much of it was spent traveling. Father Leopold was anxious to show off both Wolfgang and his sister Nannerl and to find a position worthy of his son's talents, and so the family spent years on the road. It was during the last of these extended tours - which lasted from September 1777 to January 1779 and took Mozart and his mother to Mannheim and Paris - that the young composer wrote the Sonata in G major, K 301. It dates from February 1778 in Mannheim, where Mozart and his mother spent five months.

Mozart's earlier violin-and-keyboard duos had sometimes included a cello or continuo part, and there is evidence that he had intended some of these sonatas for flute as well as violin. But when the set of sonatas that includes K 301 was published in Paris later in 1778, Mozart specified that this was a set of "Six Sonatas for Harpsichord or Fortepiano with Accompaniment of Violin." Much has been made - too much - of the fact that these are piano sonatas with violin accompaniment, as if the violin could be removed with no real damage to the music. Even a cursory examination of K 301 shows how false that idea is.

The Allegro con spirito opens with a flowing melody played by the violin, and it is the piano that murmurs the accompanying voice. Quickly the melody passes to the piano and now the violin accompanies, but the point has been made: this is a sonata for equal partners, and they share the music-making evenly. The opening Allegro is in sonata form, with a gracefully-syncopated second theme, and the movement comes to a surprisingly sudden close.

Mozart's violin-and-keyboard sonatas from this period were usually in only two movements, a pattern true of the Sonata in G major. There is no slow movement, simply another Allegro. The flowing main theme, in an easygoing 3/8, undergoes a series of variations as the movement develops. Particularly effective is the gently-dotted middle section, which dances in a graceful G minor.