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‘I love the Sonata in B flat with its extreme simplicity, which is
only apparent. In reality, it is infinitely rich in its invention, and
its musical ideas are remarkable. It’s a real joy to play.’
It is true that a mere glance at the score of the Sonata in B flat does invite one to
judge it technically accessible: sometimes the two hands are simply in octaves, or
accompany each other, and the lines are highly distilled in a style of writing that
sometimes foreshadows the last piano concerto, no.27 (K595), also in B flat major.
It was probably for this reason that, five years after Mozart’s death, the firm of
Artaria published a version for ‘pianowith violin accompaniment’, to use the period
term. A violin part, the melodies of which are taken from the harmony or come
from countermelodies, is printed above the piano part, which remains intact.
Did someone think it was not sufficient unto itself? Yet its simplicity is extremely
reminiscent of several remarks inMozart’s letters to his father: ‘You know that I am
no great lover of difficulties’; ‘It is much easier to play something fast than slowly’.
The style of the Adagio in E flat, fusing horizontal and vertical writing, sometimes
recalls the profundity of the Larghetto, also in E flat, of the Concerto no.24 in C
minor, K491 (1786). Here the piano decks itself in the colours of the orchestra, in
particular the warm timbre of the horns. Its plenitude of sound seems to be
deliberately avoided by the light textures of the concluding rondo. With its agile,
leaping theme, similar to its counterpart in the last concerto, it solicits the styles
of opera
buffa
and the dance, with that ‘unbearable lightness of being’ which often
prevails after intensely expressive movements. It is hard to imagine that Mozart
was then in such financial straits that he was obliged to leave Vienna in order to
scout for commissions.
MENAHEM PRESSLER 29