Piano Sonata No. 16 (Mozart)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Piano Sonata No. 16 in C major, K. 545 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is possibly his most famous piano sonata. It was described by Mozart himself in his own thematic catalogue as "for beginners," and it is sometimes known by the nickname Sonata facile or Sonata semplice.[1]
Mozart added the work to his catalogue on June 26, 1788, the same date as his Symphony No. 39. The exact circumstances of the work's composition are not known, however. Although the piece is very well known today, it was not published in Mozart's lifetime, first appearing in print in 1805. A typical performance takes about 14 minutes.
Contents |
[edit] The music
The work has three movements:
The first movement is written in Sonata form and is in the key of C major. The familiar opening theme is accompanied by an Alberti bass, played in the left hand.
Image:Mozart K 545 opening.png
A bridge passage composed of scales follows, arriving at a cadence in G major, the key in which the second theme is then played. A codetta follows to conclude the exposition, then the exposition is repeated. The development starts in G minor and modulates through several keys. The recapitulation begins, unusually, in the subdominant key of F major; according to Charles Rosen, the practice of beginning a recapitulation in the subdominant was "rare at the time [the sonata] was written," though the practice was later taken up by Franz Schubert.[2]
The second movement is in the key of G major, the dominant key of C major. The music modulates in the middle of this movement to the parallel minor (G minor) and its relative major (Bb major). The movement then modulates to the tonic, and, after the main theme and development is heard again, ends.
The third movement is in Rondo form and is in the tonic key, C major. The first theme is lively and sets the mood to the piece. The second theme is in G major and contains an Alberti bass in the left hand. The first theme appears again and is followed by a third theme. The third theme is in a minor key and modulates through many different keys before modulating into C major. The first theme appears again followed by a coda and finally ends in C major.
[edit] Difficulty
As a rough guide, using the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music grading system (in which grade one music can be played by a grade one musician, etc; with grades ranging from one to eight), the first movement is approximately grade 5, the middle, slower movement falling just over the requirements for grade 6; with the final rondo being rather challenging, and therefore approximately seven.[citation needed]
[edit] Notes
- ^ Pajot, Dennis. K545 "Sonate facile pour le pianoforte" in C. mozartforum.com. Retrieved on 25 May 2007.
- ^ Rosen 1997,52
[edit] References
- Rosen, Charles (1997) The Classical Style: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven. New York: Norton.
[edit] Recordings
- K 545 in Interactive Hypermedia (Shockwave required) at the BinAural Collaborative Hypertext
[edit] Media
- The score to K545, (697 kilobytes, JPEG file)
-
PianoSonata K.545 in C major - 1. Allegro Performed by Robin Alciatore. Courtesy of Musopen K545, movement 1 - Allegro Converted from Mutopia public domain MIDI K545, movement 2 - Andante Converted from Mutopia public domain MIDI K545, movement 3 - Rondo Converted from Mutopia public domain MIDI - Problems playing the files? See media help.
[edit] External links
- Piano Sonata No. 16 is available at the Digitale Mozart Edition, Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum *
- Complete score available from Mutopia
