Mozart's Piano Sonata #3 In C Major K. 545 (11:33)

February 10, 2002 AT NOON Played on the Yamaha Clavinova

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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

The youngest child and only surviving son of Leopold Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus was born in Salzburg in 1756, the year of publication of his father's influential treatise on violin-playing. He showed early precocity both as a keyboard-player and violinist, and soon turned his hand to composition. His obvious gifts were developed under his father's tutelage, with those of his elder sister, and the family, through the indulgence of their then patron, the Archbishop of Salzburg, was able to travel abroad, specifically, between 1763 and 1766, to Paris and to London. A series of other journeys followed, with important operatic commissions in Italy between 1771 and 1773. The following period proved disappointing to both father and son, as the young Mozart grew to manhood, irked by the lack of opportunity and lack of appreciation of his gifts in Salzburg, where a new Archbishop proved less sympathetic. A visit to Munich, Mannheim and Paris in 1777 and 1778 brought no substantial offer of other employment and by early 1779 Mozart was reinstated in Salzburg, now as court organist. Early in 1781 he had a commissioned opera, Idomeneo, staged in Munich for the Elector of Bavaria and dissatisfaction after being summoned to attend his patron the Archbishop in Vienna led to his dismissal. Mozart spent the last ten years of his life in precarious independence in Vienna, his material situation not improved by a marriage imprudent for one in his circumstances. Initial success with German and then Italian opera and series of subscription concerts were followed by financial difficulties. In 1791 things seemed to have taken a turn for the better, in spite of the lack of interest of the successor to the Emperor Joseph II, who had died in 1790. In late November, however, Mozart became seriously ill and died in the small hours of 5th December. Mozart's compositions were catalogued in the 19th century by Köchel, and they are generally now distinguished by K. numbering from this catalogue.

Piano Music

Mozart's sonatas for the fortepiano cover a period from 1766 to 1791, with a significant number of mature sonatas written during the years in Vienna. The sonatas inculde much fine music, ranging from the slighter C major Sonata for beginners K. 545 to the superb B flat Sonata, K. 570. In addition to his sonatas he wrote a number of sets of variations, while his ephemeral improvisations in similar form are inevitably lost to us. The published works include operatic variations as well as a set of variations on the theme Ah, vous dirai-je, maman, known in English as Twinkle, twinkle, little star.

Strictly speaking, Mozart did not compose "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star." The tune is an old French country song entitled "Ah vous dirais'je maman" and was used in one form or another by many composers in the Classic era. Joseph Haydn composed the second movement to his "Surprise" Symphony (No. 93) as a series of variations based on this tune.

Mozart also composed variations on it for piano, which is listed in the catalog of all his works as number K265: Piano Variations on "Ah vous dirais'je maman." It had always been believed that he wrote these during his Paris trip of 1778, so he would have been 22 at that time. Newer research now puts the date of composition no earlier than 1780 in Salzburg (making him 24 at the time) and no later than 1782 in Vienna, making him 26. The dating comes from an analysis of his handwriting and the type of paper he wrote the work on.

So, while not creating this work entirely on his own, Mozart did create a delightful series of variations on the tune which appear to be written as a teaching exercise as well, since they utilize basic articulation skills such as stacatto, arpeggios, repeated notes, etc.

Today's performance is entirely digital. It uses a technology called MIDI. First Lutheran has both a midi piano and a midi-hybrid pipe organ.