Mozart wrote the Rondo in D Major in 1782 as an alternate finale to his Piano Concerto No. 5, which he had composed almost a decade earlier. In the intervening years, he had quit his job in Salzburg and moved to Vienna with “a kick on my arse” from the Archbishop.
In about nine weeks over the summer of 1788, Mozart wrote three symphonies that embraced an idiosyncratic personal vision.
A little more than 200 years after Mozart wrote his Quintet for Winds and Piano, Jean Françaix arranged it as a Nonet for Winds and Strings. So this is a piece by Mozart, but certainly one filled with qualities Françaix favored in his own works too.
1789 was an unusually fallow year for Mozart, who was dealing with the poor health of his wife, Constanze; the death of their infant child (the second in two years); and various financial problems. The Clarinet Quintet was one of few bright spots.
Mozart said he composed this violin sonata in G major on Saturday, April 7, 1781, between 11:00pm and midnight. Even for Mozart, writing a 25-minute sonata in a single hour was an incredible feat.
Most rondos are lively pieces, but there are also slow rondos, where each return of the melody suggests an inescapable sadness. Mozart’s A-minor Rondo is of this kind.
There’s something cynical about Mozart’s Piano Sonata No. 15, which takes a childlike idea and twists it into something quite adult.
In Mannheim, the virtuoso flutist Johann Baptist Wendling provided Mozart with a place to stay, a piano, and a bundle of commissions for flute quartets and concertos. But there was a catch.