【NAXOS】MOZART - Piano Sonatas, Vol. 2 (Piano Sonatas Nos. 9, 12, 16 and 17)

The Sonata in D major, K. 311, was completed in Mannheim in October or November 1777 and may probably be identified with the sonata intended for the two Freysinger girls that Mozart had met in Munich, mentioned in letters to his cousin in Augsburg. Their father had been a fellow-student of Leopold Mozart and had something to say about a man usually seen as a figure of sobriety. "Murder will out", was Leopold Mozart's reply to his son's repetition of Freysinger's reminiscences. The sonata opens with a brightly confident first subject and a more delicately contrasted second subject, with characteristic chromatic appoggiature, followed by a central development that explores remoter keys. The G major slow movement, its principal theme later duly embellished, leads to a final rondo, its opening theme compared by the Italian composer Alfredo Casella to the principal theme of the finale of Beethoven's Violin Concerto.

The well known Sonate facile, the easy Sonata in C major, K. 545, originally described by Mozart as a little sonata for beginners, has enjoyed spurious fame in the present century, its principal theme published in the 1940s under the title "In an 18th Century Drawing-Room", a transformation that did the original little justice. The sonata was completed on 26th June 1788, the day before yet another letter from Mozart to his patient fellow freemason, Michael Puchberg, who continued to lend him money, with little hope of its return. The little sonata is of a particularly transparent texture, with a G major slow movement that has its due share of poignancy and a sprightly final rondo.

The Sonata in F major, K. 332, belongs to the group of three written in 1783 and given to the composer's sister Nannerl before their publication in Vienna in the following year. The sonatas were written either in Vienna or during the course of a summer visit home to Salzburg, during which Mozart introduced his wife to his disapproving family. The principal theme of the first movement is followed by a dramatic link with the C major second theme. The B flat major second movement allows the principal theme considerable embellishment, before the brilliant finale.

Mozart's financial difficulties were no nearer a lasting solution by February 1789, when he wrote out his Sonata in B fiat major, K. 570, which was first published posthumously with an optional violin part. As on other occasions, the composer opens with a principal theme based on the notes of the major triad, later contrasted with a more lyrical theme. The finely wrought E flat major slow movement gives way to a finale of fertile invention.

【NAXOS】MOZART - Piano Sonatas, Vol. 1 (Piano Sonatas Nos. 8, 10 and 15)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg in 1756, the youngest child of Leopold Mozart, author of a well known treatise on violin-playing and a musician in the service of the ruling Archbishop. Leopold Mozart was to sacrifice his own career in order to foster the God-given genius he soon perceived in his son. A childhood spent in successful tours throughout Europe, in which the young Mozart demonstrated his skill on the violin, and on the keyboard in improvisation and in performance with his sister Nannerl was followed by a less satisfactory adolescence at home in Salzburg. Mozart's talent was none the less, but there seemed little opportunity at home, particularly after the death of the old Archbishop and the succession of a less indulgent patron. In 1777 Mozart and his father, now Vice-Kapellmeister, were refused leave to travel, and Mozart himself resigned his position as Konzertmeister of the court orchestra and set out, accompanied only by his mother, to seek his fortune elsewhere. The journey took him to Augsburg, to Munich and eventually to Paris, but only after a prolonged stay in Mannheim, the seat of the Elector of Bavaria, famous for its musical establishment.

In Mannheim Mozart made many friends among the musicians at court, but neither here nor in any of the other places he visited was there a suitable position for him. The following year, after the death of his mother in Paris, he made his way slowly back to Salzburg, where his father had found him another position at court that he retained until 1781, when he found final precarious independence in Vienna. The following year he married the penniless younger sister of a singer on whom he had first set his heart in Mannheim and won initial success with his German opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail. There were pupils and subscription concerts, and chances to arouse the admiration of fashionable audiences by his skill as composer and keyboard-player in a new series of piano concertos. By the end of the decade, however, his popularity had waned, although there were signs of a change of fortune in the success of a new German opera, Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute), which was still running at the time of his sudden death in December 1791.

Nothing is known of the circumstances of composition of one of the most important of Mozart's earlier piano sonatas, the >Sonata in A minor, K. 310. It bears the date 1778 and was written in Paris, and therefore was composed at a time when Mozart had come to understand the futility of wasting more time in France, where he felt himself undervalued. During the course of the summer his mother died, a misfortune with which he was able to bear with a greater degree of maturity than might have been expected, breaking the news gently enough to his father, at home in Salzburg. The A minor Sonata opens with a principal theme of some poignancy, the mood lightened by the C major second subject. The elaborate figuration of the F major slow movement leads to an A minor final Presto that finds room for a brief episode in the tonic major key.

The Sonata in C major, K. 330, was probably written in 1783, either in Vienna, or during the course of Mozart's first visit home to Salzburg, bringing with him a wife of whom his father strongly disapproved. It is clearly one of the sonatas mentioned by the composer in a letter to his father written in June 1784, identified with K. 330, K. 331 and K. 332, and now sent for publication to Artaria, but already known to his sister. The sonata opens with an operatic principal theme, while its F major slow movement has at its heart a darker-hued F minor section, leading to a final Allegretto.

By 1788, the date of the first two movements of the Sonata in F major, K. 533, Mozart's financial difficulties had assumed some importance for him. His father had died in 1787, the year of the opera Don Giovanni, while in 1786, the year of composition of the last movement of the K. 533 Sonata, Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro) had proved a success. A fourth child had been born at the end of December and was to die six months later. The first two movements of the F major sonata bear the date 3rd January 1788, and the final rondo the date 10th June 1786, catalogued by Köchel separately as K. 494. The whole sonata was published in Vienna in early 1788. The first movement starts with a single-line melody, echoed at the octave, followed by a second subject that includes an important triplet figure. There is a B flat major slow movement and the final rondo, expanded for the 1788 publication, now includes a cadenza with an element of counterpoint.

FLAC

【NAXOS】 SCARLATTI COMPLETE KEYBOARD SONATAS VOL.16 (DUANDUAN HAO)

Domenico Scarlatti was born in Naples in 1685, sixth of the ten children of the composer Alessandro Scarlatti, Sicilian by birth and chiefly responsible for the early development of Neapolitan opera. The Scarlatti family had extensive involvement in music both in Rome and in Naples, where Alessandro Scarlatti became maestro di cappella to the Spanish viceroy in 1684. Domenico Scarlatti started his public career in 1701 under his father’s aegis as organist and composer in the vice-regal chapel. The following year father and son took leave of absence to explore the possibilities of employment in Florence, and Alessandro was later to exercise paternal authority by sending his son to Venice, where he remained for some four years. In 1709 Domenico entered the service of the exiled Queen of Poland, Maria Casimira, in Rome, there meeting and playing against Handel in a keyboard contest, in which the latter was declared the better organist and Scarlatti the better harpsichordist. It has been suggested that he spent a period from 1719 in Palermo, but his earlier connection with the Portuguese embassy in Rome led him before long to Lisbon, where he became music-master to the children of the royal family. This employment took him in 1728 to Madrid, when his pupil the Infanta Maria Barbara married the heir to the Spanish throne. Scarlatti apparently remained there for the rest of his life, his most considerable achievement the composition of some hundreds of single-movement sonatas or exercises, designed largely for the use of the Infanta, who became Queen of Spain in 1746.

The keyboard sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti survive in part in a number of eighteenth-century manuscripts, some clearly from the collection of Queen Maria Barbara, possibly bequeathed to the great Italian castrato Farinelli, who was employed at the Spanish court, and now in Venice. Various sets of sonatas were published during the composer’s lifetime, including a set of thirty issued, seemingly, in London in 1738, and 42 published in London by Thomas Roseingrave in 1739, including the thirty already available from the earlier publication. In more recent times the sonatas were edited by Alessandro Longo, who provided the numerical listing under L, and in 1953 the American harpsichordist Ralph Kirkpatrick offered a new listing, distinguished by the letter K. Stylistic grounds have suggested a further changed listing by Giorgio Pestelli, under the letter P., and proposing a new chronology, while Emilia Fadini, in a complete edition for Ricordi, offers a further re-ordering, based in part on the Venice volumes.

Kirkpatrick’s listing of the sonatas, based on the chronological order of the available sources, starts with the thirty Essercizi per gravicembalo offered for sale in early 1739 by Adamo Scola, ‘Musick Master in Vine Street, near Swallow Street, Piccadilly’. The publication included a dedication in Italian to the King of Portugal and a prefatory note for the purchaser, denying serious intention and modestly suggesting rather ‘lo scherzo ingegnoso dell’Arte’. The listing continues primarily with the Venice volumes, in chronological order of compilation.

[1] The Sonata in A major, K.280/L.237/P.395, is included in the fifth volume of the sonatas preserved in Venice, dated 1753. Marked Allegro, it starts with a lively figure in the right hand, immediately imitated in the left, but continuing with right-hand chords leading to a final F minor, before the first section is repeated. The chordal passage continues, leading at the last moment to A major once more, after which the second half of the movement is repeated.

[2] The Sonata in D minor, K417/L.462/P.40, marked Allegro moderato, is a fugue. The subject, heard first in the tenor register, is a version of the descending scale, answered a fifth higher, followed by the entry of a third voice. Further episodes occur, with the easily recognisable subject heard in a series of varied entries. It is included in the ninth Venice volume of 1754.

[3] The Sonata in B flat major, K.440/L.97/P.328, is a Minuet, its two sections repeated. It is included in the tenth Venice volume of 1755.

[4] The Sonata in D major, K.511/L.314/P.388, is included in the twelfth Venice collection, dated to 1756, and is marked Allegro. As it proceeds it moves to a passage of modulation, exploring remoter keys, and continuing into the second part of the sonata.

[5] The primary source for the Sonata in C major, K.200/L.54/P.242, is the second of the Venice volumes, dated 1752. It is marked Allegro and after the opening passage moves forward into modulations that reach their destination of G major, as the repeated first section comes to an end, duly returning to the original key in the second part of the sonata.

[6] The Sonata in F minor, K.467/L.476/P.513, is found in the eleventh Venice volume, dated 1756. It is marked Allegrissimo and is full of those short repetitions that are a frequent element in Scarlatti’s style of writing.

[7] The Sonata in C major, K.231/L.409/P.393, appears in the third Venice volume, dated 1753. Marked Allegro , it is characterized by a short rhythmic figure often repeated.

[8] The Sonata in B flat major, K.488/L.Supp.37/P.382, marked Allegro, is included in the twelfth Venice volume of 1756. The lower second voice enters in imitation of the first at the beginning of the sonata and the opening motif returns in an unusual key to open the second half of the sonata.

[9] The Sonata in F major, K.541/L.120/P.545, an Allegretto in 6/8, is preserved in the thirteenth Venice volume, dated 1757. The flow of the second part of the sonata is suddenly interrupted on three occasions by silent bars, after which due modulation proceeds.

[10] The Sonata in D major, K.336/L.337/P.262, marked Allegro, is found in the seventh Venice volume, dated 1754. It starts with a descending figure, and in its second section explores dramatic minor keys.

[11] The Sonata in G major, K.390/L.234/P.348, is included in the ninth Venice volume, dated 1754. The second part enters in imitation of the first in a sonata that explores a full range of the keyboard.

[12] From the sixth Venice volume, dated 1753, comes the Sonata in C major, K.308/L.359/P.318, marked Cantabile. Relatively simple in structure, the melodic interest is principally in the right hand throughout.

[13] The Sonata in D major, K.118/L.122/P.266, is found in the fifteenth Venice volume of thirty sonatas, dated 1749. Marked Non presto, the sonata involves hand-crossing and has a number of passages of trills.

[14] The primary source of the Sonata in B flat major, K.528/L.200/P.532, is the thirteenth Venice volume, dated 1757. Marked Allegro, it again brings passages of handcrossing and makes continuing use of figures of descending octaves.

[15] The Sonata in G major, K.260/L.124/P.304, marked Allegro, is included in the fourth Venice volume, dated 1753. It is a work of almost perpetual motion and includes a number of changes of key signature.

[16] The Sonata in D major, K.458/L.212/P.260, is found in the eleventh Venice volume, dated 1756, and is marked Allegro. It is characterized by a use of pedal-point.

[17] The Sonata in C minor, K.362/L.156/P.159, found in the eighth of the Venice volumes, dated 1754, has the tempo direction of Allegro. There is continued motion throughout the sonata.

[18] The present recording ends with the Sonata in C major, K.133/L.282/P.218, which is included in the fifteenth Venice volume, dated 1749, and is again an Allegro. It includes modulation to remoter keys, use of chromatic notes and passages in octaves in a work that typifies the variety Scarlatti achieves, while retaining always his own characteristic musical language.