Mozart - Piano and Violin Sonata in D KV 29 - Menuetto mov. 2/2

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 - 1791)

Sonata for Keyboard and Violin in D major, KV 29

2. Menuetto

Harpsichord: Blandine Verlet
Violin: Gérard Poulet

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's set of six sonatas for keyboard and violin, K. 26-31 were composed in early 1766 in The Hague during the Mozart family's grand tour of Europe. They were dedicated to Princess Caroline of Nassau-Weilburg on the occasion of the eighteenth birthday of her brother, the Prince of Orange. They were published as Mozart's Op. 4. These works show an improvement in compositional technique over the sets for Paris (KV 6-9) and London (KV 10-15), although like the previous sets, the keyboard part dominates and the violin may be considered optional.

Abert wrote: "A very different aspect is revealed by the sonatas written in London and The Hague, K10 - 15 and K26 - 31. It is not, however, as though Mozart had broken completely free from his former models. Indeed, Schobert's spirit continued to leave its mark on his style right up to the end of his life, simply because the two men were kinded spirits. But the older impressions were now joined by new ones whose principal mediator was Johann Cristian Bach. It was not, however, a change that took place overnight: the sonatas K10, K11 and K13 are still in three movements, while K13 and K14 additionally include complete recapirulations as found in works of the earlier period. Parisan taste is discernible in points of detail, too. In other respects, however, we find greater freedom here in terms of both the number and order of the movements [...] There is little doubt that Leopold - his weather-eye trained, as always, on the taste of local audiences - had a hand in this development. [...] It is clear, moreover, from the opening bars of K15 that Mozart was now writing for Händel's adopted homeland (England). But the most important aspect of all is the way in which these sonatas reveal Mozart drawing progressively closer in his style of writing to the language of Johann Christian Bach.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Mozart
• child
• early
• sonata
• K29
• K.
• KV
• KV29
• K.29
• 29
• Re
• major
• Blandine
• Verlet
• Gérard
• Poulet
• piano
• harpsichord
• violin
• menuetto