Rockport Music - RCMF Music in the Morning: Mozart Sonatas - VIOLIN SONATA IN B-FLAT MAJOR, K. 454

VIOLIN SONATA IN B-FLAT MAJOR, K. 454

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-91)

Composed 1784: 23 minutes

“I’ve got to write at breakneck speed—everything’s composed—but not written yet,” Mozart wrote to his father about an upcoming opera. What he meant was that an outline already existed, sketched on manuscript paper, while the labor of filling in every note still lay ahead. That was precisely the situation with the B-flat Sonata, K. 454, undertaken at the last minute for Regina Strinasacchi. The 23-year-old Italian violin virtuosa had been touring widely between 1780 and 1783 and arrived in Vienna the following year. Mozart was eager to report the encounter to his father in Salzburg: “I am right now composing a sonata which we are going to play together on Thursday at her concert in the theater.” The performance formed part of a concert organized by his friend, the clarinetist Anton Stadler, and also included a performance of the Wind Serenade, K. 361.

The audience in the Kärtnertor Theater on April 29, 1784 included Emperor Joseph II, who asked to see Mozart’s music after it had been tumultuously acclaimed. Mozart showed him the violin part—handwritten, with hastily drawn lines between which appeared a few sketchy cues for the piano part. He had evidently relied on his prodigious memory for the performance. Fourteen years later his widow Constanze exaggerated the story, recalling that Mozart presented the Emperor with a blank sheet. The original manuscript, now in Stockholm, largely confirms the essentials. The keyboard part, added after the concert, is written in different color ink and is often squeezed between the existing violin lines to the point of illegibility.

K. 454 opens—unusually for a chamber work of this scale—with a solemn introduction that immediately presents violin and piano as equal partners. The first movement unfolds with tightly argued thematic exchanges and several striking modulations. The slow movement provides the emotional center of the work. Here the richly decorated violin and piano parts dovetail and genuinely share the material, marking a turning point in Mozart’s writing for the duo sonata. The finale is a cheerful, often concerto-like rondo with four episodes. The Sonata quickly became a Viennese favorite. Within a few years it had been arranged for flute quartet, for string quartet, and for string trio.