Mozart sonatas

I'm listening to KV399 currently, and was just about to write a praiseworthy review of the opening Ouverture-Allegro (it appears the suite was left unfinished), when I heard three, consecutive parallel fifths blare out from my PC speakers! Other than that hiccough though, the work is really rather interesting.

So what about'em parallels? It builds CHARACTER.

Brahms kept a catalogue of P5s and 8ves because when a genius does it, there might well be a good reason behind it.

Also - which passage? (what bars?)

Actually that is a common problem with the Hadyn Sonatas (starting from 1771) and the Mozart sonatas.

And how. I've been trying to learn a Haydn sonata for a year; deceptively difficult. I gave up on the Beethoven Op. 14 in G I was messing with.

Some of the most difficult pre-late Romantic keyboard music to play very well is Hadyn --- especially the late sonatas. Partly because it works much better on the pianoforte (The Viennese ones not the English broadwoods which led to the modern pianos - the Viennesse ones had a lighter frame -- I believe all wood. I know this only because I had the rare opportunity to write for one) and the articulations.

Hmm the Op14 no 1 has a tough 1st movement because the theme is so rhythmically strange --- you really have to count. Anyway I am going off topic. Keep at the sonatas.

That's exactly the kind of instrument I'm trying to learn the Haydn on. I am fortunate enough to own a Peter Fisk reproduction of an Andreas Stein instrument (Viennese) from about 1785, perfect for this kind of music, and certainly for Mozart as well. Playing the fortepiano presents its own problems, though, as I'm finding out.

It's interesting that Haydn's sonatas should be so challenging - almost as much so as Mozart's, some maybe more - especially considering that while he was a capable pianist by any measure, he was by no means the virtuoso that Mozart was. Haydn's writing is so individual, so marvelously quirky. It's really a pleasure.

*sigh*, I want a pianoforte so badly ....or at least to play on one. You are lucky, J. Lee! You say there are some problems, though...what kind of problems?

Oh, and I've also just learned (during spring semester of college, I mean) the first movement of Haydn's sonata no. 37. yeah, it's fun stuff . I agree that it's probably easier on a pianoforte, modern pianos have a too full of a sound (especially mine ).

You say there are some problems, though...what kind of problems?

Poor choice of words. "Challenges" is a better one. The touch is so incredibly light and delicate, that it takes a true command of the keyboard to do it justice. The modern piano is infinitely forgiving compared to the exquisite delicacy of the Viennese fortepiano action.

This is getting even more off topic but if you can ever find it I was told there ois a recording of the various pianos Beethoven wrote his sonatas for. Very interesting stuff. It would be interesting to hear the same type of recording for some of Hadyn's. Especially as his last three sonatas are written for the English pianoforte -- the 1st movement of his last especially doesn't sound so great on a Viennesse pianoforte. But the famous piannissimo damper pedal passage in his last C major one sounds infinitely better on a pianoforte than a modern piano.

Yeah, there is an amazing contrast between the Stein instruments Beethoven played early in his career and the much larger instruments he was playing toward the end of his life. My favourite recording of his 1st and 2nd Piano Concerti is on a light and airy little 5-octave Viennese; hard to believe, but the sound is a revelation.

I read somewhere that Mozart liked Stein instruments very much, but owned a Walther because Steins were too expensive. Wonder if that's true.