Piano Sonata No. 15 (Mozart)

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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (posthumous portrait by Barbara Krafft )

The sonata No. 15 in F major KV 533/494 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is a piano sonata in three movements . It is one of Mozart's late sonatas and was completed on January 3, 1788, after he had already written the rondo of the third movement in 1786 as a single work with the KV number 494.

The average performance time is 23 minutes.

sentences

This sonata reveals a changed style for Mozart: his sonatas now have a more subtle form of expression and greater proportions of polyphonic voice guidance.

1st movement: Allegro

The first movement is written polyphonically throughout in F major with contrapuntal approaches. At first the subject appears only in the right hand, then in both. Then the subject changes to the left hand before it is picked up again by both hands. As an additional surprise, the recapitulation brings a modulation into distant minor keys.

2nd movement: Andante

The second movement has similarities with the main sonata form and is in B flat major . Up to bar 22, this melancholy piece with its calm Andante spans a large melodic arc of the first group of themes, which from bar 23 dissolves into warm-sounding cadences with which Mozart expresses a certain resignation. Noteworthy are the consistently polyphonic voice leading as well as the dramatic dissonant leads from bar 60, which are later admired by musicians for their harmonic boldness and perceived as unusual.

3rd movement: Rondo: Allegretto

After Mozart had written the first two movements of this sonata, he integrated the Rondo in F major, composed two years earlier, as the finale in a slightly modified and elongated form in order to create a more substantial contrast to the other two movements.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rondo in F major KV 494 : Sheet music and audio files in the International Music Score Library Project