Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Violin Sonata in C major, K. 296 (1778)
I. Allegro vivace
II. Andante sostenuto
III. Rondo. Allegro
Henryk Szeryng, violin and Ingrid Haebler, piano
Description by Brian Robins [-]
Mozart’s sonatas for keyboard and violin fall into four groups: those composed as a child in Paris, London and The Hague; seven written during the trip to Mannheim and Paris between 1777 and 1778; five composed in 1781; and an additional three dating from later in the 1780s. The present work belongs to the second of these sets, having been composed in Mannheim in the spring of 1778. The extant autograph provides a date of March 11, just three days before Mozart and his mother finally left Mannheim to continue their long delayed journey to Paris. It also informs us that the sonata was composed for “Mademoiselle Therese.” Therese Pierron was the stepdaughter of Privy Court Councillor Pierron, and a piano pupil of Mozart’s, who played one of the keyboard parts of the Concerto for three pianos, K. 242 in a farewell concert for him given on March 12. The composer had stayed in Pierron’s house for some time during his stay in Mannheim.
Like all Mozart’s sonatas with violin, it was described as being for “piano and violin,” not the other way around. This is an important distinction that helps to underline the fact that it is the piano that has the dominant role, a feature emphasized by Mozart when he came to publish the C major Sonata in Vienna in 1781 along with five more recently composed works (K. 376, and K. 377-380) as his “Opus 2.” The title page of Artaria’s publication announces the sonatas as being for “Harpsichord or Piano with the accompaniment of Violin.” Despite this, all but the juvenile sonatas achieve a more equal balance between the two instruments than is the case with many contemporary works. There are three movements: Allegro Vivace, Andante sostenuto, and Rondeau.
