“One and all, the enclosed world of the Violin Sonatas is vernal
and in blossom, which is to say, they have no equivalent except
in Nature. At each hearing, we may wonder whether the particular
Sonata of the moment be not the most lovely creation, physically,
in all music” (Sacheverell Sitwell, The Hunters and the Hunted,
1947).
“Mozart’s sonatas
for violin and piano represent a phenomenon as distinctive in
music as Dante’s Paradiso in the field of literature”
(Ezra Pound, Il Mare, July 1st, 1933).
For all the many
differences between them, Sitwell and Pound were both of them
connoisseurs in many fields of the arts, with eyes and ears
well tuned to the discovery and appreciation of the beautiful;
both, as these quotations make clear, found much to relish and
admire in Mozart’s violin sonatas. This comprehensive collection
makes it possible to study the evolution of Mozart’s contribution
to this particular area of the repertoire.
Mozart wrote for
the combination of violin and keyboard at almost every stage
of his career. Listening, in chronological order, to his music
for this combination of instruments one cannot help but be struck
by the shift from a form in which the piano is very much the
dominant instrument, and the violin’s role is very much that
of a subsidiary, to a form in which there is rich and complex
partnership of the two instruments.
Mozart’s earliest
sonatas, K 6-9, were first published in Paris in 1764, i.e.
when their composer was seven years old - though he surely had
a degree of assistance from his father; it has been pointed
out, for example, that the second minuet in K 6 is an arrangement
of music from one of Leopold’s serenades. These sonatas were
also issued in London in the following year, announced as “Printed
for the Author, and sold at his Lodgings at Mr. Williamson’s
in Thrift-street, Soho ... Price 6s and a Family Print, Price
2s 6d”. Thrift-street is, of course, now Frith Street; Mr Williamson
was a corset-maker. The original publication of K 6-7 described
them on the title page as “Sonatas For the Harpsichord / Which
can be played with Violin Accompaniment”. The same description
appeared on the title page of K8 and 9. It is hardly surprising,
then, that greater emphasis should fall on the keyboard than
on the violin in all of these youthful compositions.
It would be wrong
to make any excessive claims for this music, but they have a
certain almost guileless charm. K 6 has, in its four brief movements,
a largely untroubled sense of boyish joy, simple figures repeated
for the sheer joy of it. Though the violin does indeed “accompany”
the piano, the youthful Mozart is not without an awareness of
how the two instruments might interact creatively, especially
at moments when the violin echoes and imitates the piano. In
K 7 the relatively substantial opening allegro allows the violin
greater prominence, especially towards its conclusion; K 8,
in its final movement, provides an early example of Mozart’s
intriguing use of modulation. K 9 has a chirpy opening allegro,
a wistful andante and two rather dull minuets.
K 10-15, which have
optional cello parts, are not included here, and the next group
of six sonatas, K 26-31 were published in the Hague in April1766,
dedicated to the Princess Caroline of Nassau-Weilburg, before
whom the Mozart children had played in the previous year. All
save the first are in two movements. K 26 interpolates a central
slow movement (adagio poco andante) of disarming beauty, in
which the two instrumental voices interweave very tellingly.
It is particularly well played in this recording. So is the
clever closing allegro. This already feels musically more mature
than anything encountered in the Paris / London sonatas. Of
K 27 Elizabeth Kropfitsch writes in the booklet notes: “The
first movement is a minor sensation: it could have come straight
out of a modern musical. The melody sequence from bar 10 to
bar 11, and from bar 28 to bar 29, is also to be found in adaptation
by Andrew Lloyd Webber”. My knowledge of maestro Lloyd
Webber’s music is not sufficient for me to judge the accuracy
of this information, but I can say that this opening slow movement
is quite delightful, limpid and vernal (to borrow Sitwell’s
word). In K 28 the two instruments come close to having roles
of equal importance; certainly they share the thematic material
and are of equal prominence in the energetic forward movement
of this lively piece. There is an increasing assurance to the
writing in general – Mozart, young as he still was, had already
acquired a great deal of experience and encountered the musical
life of many of Europe’s major cities. There is nothing childlike
about the allegro that opens K 29, for example, or the sophisticated
adagio that opens K 30. K 31, in B major, starts with a dancing
allegro and concludes with a set of variations, marked tempo
di menuetto, which is attractively lilting, though with the
piano very much to the fore once more.
Brother and sister
Johannes and Elisabeth Jess-Kropfitsch play these early sonatas
with sympathy and understanding and with an entirely appropriate
sense of scale. These make no claims to be ‘authentic’ performances,
and those who insist on harpsichord or fortepiano will need
to turn elsewhere – perhaps to Rachel Podger and Gary Cooper
on Channel Classics or to Gerard Poulet and Blandine Verlet
on Phillips. Those happy to accept more traditional mainstream/modern
performances will find much to enjoy in the work of these talented
Viennese musicians.
The sonatas numbered
K 55-60 are now regarded as spurious, and the next group of
genuine sonatas were written during the spring and summer of
1778, on the occasion of more touring, to Mannheim and Paris.
This group is made up of K 296 and K 301-306 and occupies CDs
2 and 3 in this set. Though these were still described as sonatas
for keyboard “avec accompagnement d’un violon”, it is clear
that the violin was increasingly regarded as far more than a
mere accompaniment. We are moving, here, into territory that
will be more familiar to most listeners; this, for example,
is where the excellent 1980s set by Itzhak Perlman and Daniel
Barenboim (on Deutsche Grammophon) begins. Comment sonata by
sonata is therefore unnecessary. Every one of these sonatas
has something to recommend it strongly – whether it be the gorgeous
andante of K 296, opening and closing in gentle music of great
beauty, either side of a more dramatic central outburst; the
opening presentation of the lyrical melody, on violin, in the
allegro con spirito of K 301; the minor siciliana in the same
sonata’s second movement; the lovely conclusion of K 302. K
303 and, especially, K 304 are fully-realised achievements.
K 304 is a largely melancholy, but never self-indulgent, meditation
on very serious matters, surely conditioned by the recent death
of Mozart’s mother. K 305, on the other hand, leaves elegy well
behind, in its reaffirmation of vitality and the appetite for
life.
The third CD in
this collection is completed by two sets of variations, composed
in Vienna in June 1781, and the allegro, the only completed
movement, of a sonata began in Vienna in March 1781. Both sets
of variations take their themes from French songs, attributed
here to ‘A. Albanese’, though I note that Grove describes them
as anonymous. These are pleasant, but not especially significant,
pieces. The isolated allegro, K 372, is a striking and substantial
piece, full of invention and passion. It is particularly unfortunate
that Mozart left this projected sonata (originally it was planned
for performance in Vienna with the violinist Antonio Brunetti)
unfinished.
With CDs four and
five we move to the so-called ‘Aurnhammer Sonatas’, dedicated
to his piano pupil Josepha von Aurnhammer - of whom Mozart wrote
less than gallantly in one letter that “if a painter wanted
to portray the devil to the life, he would have to choose her
face. She is as fat as a farm-wench, perspires so that you feel
inclined to vomit, and goes about so scantily clad that really
you can read as plain as print: ‘Pray, do look here’”.
He did also say that she “plays delightfully; she lacks only
the true, fine singing taste in the cantabile”. The two later
became good friends. The set of sonatas dedicated to her contained
K 376-380 (as well as K 296 written earlier, and mentioned above).
Now the dialogue
of the two instruments is even more thoroughgoing. The three
movements of K 376 (written while Mozart was living ‘free’ in
Vienna) are a constant joy, not least in the supremely elegant
final rondo – very much ‘allegretto grazioso’. K 377 is something
of a master class in the form. Its vivacious opening allegro
demands considerable technical skill from both players, and
its andante is a set of variations in D minor, of great serenity,
the last of which has affinities with the D minor string quartet,
K 421; it closes with a minuet which is full of charm without
being at all arch. This is one of the great violin sonatas.
Elsewhere, there are such glories as the gently wistful andante
of K 380 and the vivid opening allegro of K 378.
K 402-404 also belong
to Mozart’s time in Vienna, being worked on in 1782. K 402 is,
it should be noted, was left incomplete (Mozart composed only
to bar 34 of the first movement) and is largely the work of
Abbé Stadler, work undertaken at the request of Constanze. K
403 also comes down to us in a version completed by Stadler.
K 404 is made up of two rather slight movements that may not
even belong together. These three sonatas are worth having as
part of a ‘complete’ set of Mozart’s works for keyboard and
violin, but it is with K 454 that we return to music of real
stature. This was written in April 1784, in Vienna, for the
violinist Regina Strinasacchi. It was premiered at the Kärntnertor
Theatre, in the presence of Emperor Joseph II on the 29th
April. Mozart had not, apparently, found time at this stage
to write down the piano part and played from largely blank sheets
of paper! Indeed, on the autograph manuscript of the score the
piano part is written in a different colour of ink and in places
is somewhat squeezed in, as if was being added to an already
existing violin part. Such stories aside, this is music of a
very high order. The first movement’s introductory largo that
has about it an air of anticipation, anticipation thoroughly
fulfilled by the imposing allegro that follows. The lyrical
andante finds room for some powerfully dramatic passages, and
the large-scale closing rondo sounds almost symphonic.
CD six contains
K 481, K 526 and K 547. The first was completed in Vienna in
December 1785. There is extreme subtlety of musical imagination
in the interplay of the two instruments in K 481, not least
in the sublimity of its slow movement, surely amongst the most
beautifully lyrical music that even Mozart ever wrote. The theme
of the closing allegretto is distinctly Haydnesque, the variations
often startlingly beautiful and intense. The sonata in A major,
K 526 was completed in August 1787 (again in Vienna), at the
very time that Mozart was working on Don Giovanni. It
abounds in ideas, harmonic, melodic and rhythmic alike, but
also demonstrates Mozart’s awareness of the value of sparseness.
The complex rhythms of the opening movement are succeeded by
a remarkable andante, in which the very simplicity of the piano
part magically complements the expressivity of the writing for
the violin to produce music of expansive and resonant stillness.
Stillness is strikingly absent from the moto perpetuo of the
closing presto, exuberantly, even fiercely energetic, up to
and though its stunning coda, a journey made through passages
of counterpoint which demand a good deal of precision from the
players.
For the listener
who has been following the growing sophistication of Mozart’s
writing for this combination of instruments there is a final
surprise. Mozart’s final Violin Sonata, K 457 was completed
in Vienna on the 10th July 1788. It was designated
“A little piano sonata for beginners with a violin”. In a sense
Mozart takes the from back to where he had begun with it, but
with the advantage of all that he had learned since then; this
is simplicity matured out of rich musical and human experience,
not out of innocence or childhood. It is a sonata whose significance
is all the greater when it is heard at this point in the cycle
of Mozart’s compositions in the genre; it takes on a weight
of meaning, which in itself it might not possess, from all that
has gone before it.
To listen to these
32 sonatas in chronological order is a marvellous experience.
Johannes and Elisabeth Jess-Kropfitsch are valuable guides through
the journey. The two – who also play and record with the cellist
brother Stefan – are highly accomplished musicians, thoroughly
steeped in the traditions of Viennese music. Their performances
are thoroughly idiomatic, expressive and attractively characterised,
without ever being exaggerated or mannered. Naturally, there
are more dazzling, and perhaps more profound, performances to
be found elsewhere of some of the mature sonatas; but that is
in the nature of ‘collected’ sets of this kind. Admirers of
Perlman and Barenboim, of Grumiaux and Klien, amongst ‘mainstream’
recordings, or of Andrew Manze and Richard Egarr amongst ‘authentic’
versions, are hardly likely to lower their estimate of those
admirable performances on hearing the Kropfitsches. But there
is much to be said for hearing a cycle such as this from a single
pair of performers, so that one’s sense of the composer’s development
is quite separate from considerations about different performers,
recorded sound worlds etc. There is a coherent musical vision
to these recordings, and it is a vision that the performers
are well able to sustain and articulate. There is nothing here
that is less than highly accomplished, technically assured and
musically intelligent. There are, of course, other ways of playing
these sonatas, but this decently set makes an excellent ‘library’
collection to have on one’s shelves.
There are extensive
notes in German, English and French.
Glyn Pursglove
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Elizabeth Jess-Kropfitsch
(violin) 
