Classical Music | Piano Music

Recorded on 03/11/2008, uploaded on 01/24/2009

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

During the summer of 1782, Mozart worked on a piece for violin and piano, presumably what would be a movement of a sonata. For whatever reasons, Mozart abandoned the work and never completed it. After his death, Maximilian Stadler, an Austrian composer and musicologist, completed the work for piano alone. It has since come to be known as the Fantasia No. 2 in C minor.

From the structure of the piece, it is perhaps a little unclear which movement Mozart intended it to be. Since it is the only a fragment, it can be assumed he intended it to be the first movement. However, the exposition-like structure and the elaborate piano writing suggest either an unusually slow first movement or perhaps it was intended as a middle movement. 

From beginning to end, the Fantasia has a definite improvisatory character to it. A sweeping arpeggio begins the work and precedes the subsequent statements of its motivic material. A second theme follows, in the key of E-flat major, which seems to rise miraculously, with brilliant scales, out of the gloomy depths of C minor. Towards the end of the exposition, a melodic idea of steadfast joy is all too briefly heard. It is as if the opening struggle in C minor and the triumphant release into E-flat major were merely the prologue to the arrival of this motif. It is here where Mozart left off.

The following development section, as completed by Stadler, returns to C minor and the material of the first theme. However, a new idea in G minor soon wells up from the lower reaches of the piano. The remainder of the development focuses exclusively on this new idea. After a return to the tonic key, the recapitulation commences and follows a similar plan to the exposition. However, an odd rhythmic displacement occurs in the sixth bar of the recapitulation that (at least in the opinion of this author) creates a noticeable imbalance that would have likely been avoided had Mozart himself completed the piece. Regardless, the second theme follows in the key of the tonic major key and brings the Fantasia to a peaceful and joyful close.     Joseph DuBose

Fantasie, K. 396              Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Mozart is said to have composed his first piano pieces just before his fourth birthday. Commissioned by an unknown stranger to compose the Requiem Mass, Mozart became obsessed with the idea that it was for his own death, and he died on December 25th, 1791, before the work was finished. Mozart left the Fantasie in C Minor K. 396 unfinished as well, and composer M. Statler, hired by Mozart's widow Constanze to finish many of Mozart's works, completed this piano piece, which was originally intended for the violin and piano .     Hayk Arsenyan

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.