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Technical Notice
| Classical Composer: | Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus |
|---|---|
| Work: | Piano Sonata No. 11 in A Major, K. 331 |
| Year Composed: | 1783 |
| Instrumentation: | pf |
| Publishers: |
Universal Edition Artaria Breitkopf & Härtel G. Schirmer, Inc. C.F. Peters Corporation Oxford University Press |
| Duration: | 00:12:00 |
| Period: | Classical (1750-1830) |
| Work Category: | Instrumental |
Work Information
Available Recording(s)
The A major Sonata, K. 331, belongs to a brighter world and is among the best known of Mozart's keyboard sonatas which was written either in Vienna or perhaps in Salzburg, which he visited in August that year for the first time since his dismissal in 1781 and his subsequent marriage. Its first movement theme has found its way even into orchestral repertoire with Max Reger's monumental Variations and Fugue on a theme of Mozart while the last has enjoyed an independent existence under the hands of many a tiro and was even used by the composer's friends Stephen Storace in his pasticcio opera The Siege of Belgrade, staged at Drury Lane in London in 1791. In a letter completed on 12th June 1784 and written from Vienna to his father in Salzburg Mozart mentions a set of three keyboard sonatas that he had earlier sent home to his sister and that were then being engraved by the publisher Artaria, who advertised them for sale in August of the same year. It is thought that the sonatas were written either in Vienna or in Salzburg during the course of 1783 rather than at any earlier date.
The gentle pastoral lilt of the theme of the first movement of the A major Sonata is followed by six variations that include a third in the key of A minor, a fourth with hand-crossing, a very considerable feature of the C minor Sonata, a fifth Adagio and a final Allegro. The second movement is a Minuet, with a D major Trio, and this is followed by the famous Rondo alla Turca, a form of popular exoticism that bears little relation to the kind of music Vienna under Turkish siege had heard at its gates a hundred years before.
Writer: Keith Anderson
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