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‘I’mveryfondofthefirstmovementoftheSonatainA.Thevariation
principle offers Mozart a wide range of expressive possibilities.
His variations can have the desperate colours of
Empfindsamkeit
or those of an operatic aria – in this case a love aria, in which the
right handwould be a soprano. Mozart adored the reactivity of the
new fortepianos, which allowed him to convey all the refinement
of his playing and his writing.’
In a letter to his father, Mozart himself testifies to his wonder at the fortepianos
by Stein he heard while staying in Augsburg in October 1777: ‘In whatever way I
touch the keys, the tone is always even. It never jars, it is never stronger or weaker
or entirely absent; in a word, it is always even.’ His discovery of this instrument
widened the field of possibilities, which Mozart exploits both technically, with
very rapid and even repetitions of notes (possible only thanks to the escapement
action), and expressively, with slower tempi and long-breathed phrases made
possible by the resonance. He can even very subtly weaken the striking force by
sometimes expressly requesting that the left hand should pass above over the
right, which he stipulates by marking
mano sinistra
above notes in the treble clef
which would normally have been played by the right hand.
MENAHEM PRESSLER 25