Classical Music | Violin Music

Recorded on 07/10/2007, uploaded on 01/24/2009

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Having resigned his post in Salzburg, Mozart, accompanied by his mother, set out in search of new employment. His journey, which started in September 1777 and lasted until January 1789, took him to Mannheim, Paris and Munich. During this time, he composed six sonatas for piano and violin that were later published in Paris in 1778. The set was likely inspired by a set of six sonatas for harpsichord and violin by the Dresden Kapellmeister Joseph Schuster that Mozart performed while in Mannheim. He described them as "not bad" and sent a copy of them home to his father and sister, as well as describing his intention to compose his own set of six sonatas in a similar style.

The first of the set, the Sonata in G major, K. 301, consists of only two movements—an Allegro con spirito sonata movement and an Allegro finale. In fact, only the last sonata of the set, K. 306, has more than two movements. Chief among Mozart's aims in composing these sonatas was achieving a greater balance between the two instruments by making the solo violin more independent. The violin opens the work with a blithe melody in G major with a characteristic appoggiatura figure lending it a particular tenderness. The following second theme in the key of the dominant is livelier with its syncopated rhythm. Remarkably, both thematic sections are quite lengthy compared to the rest of the movement—the exposition itself extends to nearly half the movement and both themes occupy almost the same number of measures.

The finale begins simply with an arching melody the rises up through triadic motion and then descends through the scale of the tonic key. During the central episode in G minor, the violin achieves its greatest independence from the piano. While the piano provides a delicate accompaniment of broken chords, the violin exclusively carries the melody throughout the section. The opening G major section then returns to round out the ternary structure of the movement. An energetic coda, with sweeping scales and arpeggios, brings the first of these violin sonatas to an exciting close.        Joseph DuBose

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Sonata for Violin and Piano in G Major, K. 301           Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

I. Allegro con spirito; II.  Allegretto

Mozart added considerably to the violin and piano sonata repertoire, writing his first sonatas for these instruments between the ages of six and eight and his last in 1788, making up a total of some thirty compositions.

Mozart wrote the Sonata in G major, K. 301- the first of a set of six sonatas written during the composer's journey to Mannheim and Paris-in February 1778. The violin states the principal theme and then accompanies the keyboard in a second statement of the material. The keyboard introduces the second subject, followed by the violin. The development draws partly on subsidiary material and leads to the return of first and second subject in recapitulation. The second of the two movements starts with the main theme that, in varied form, will frame intervening episodes, the second of which is in g minor.      Yura Lee

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.