MOZART VARIATIONS AND SONATAS FOR PIANO AND VIOLIN/1 Presented by Liszt Academy

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart bequeathed 36 piano-violin sonatas to posterity. He became involved with the genre at an early age even by his own standards: his father notated Mozart’s first four sonatas in Paris between 1762 and 1764, when Mozart was between the ages of 6 and 8. These were followed by the ‘opus III’, comprising six works published in London in 1765, then the ‘opus IV’ (K. 26–31), containing half a dozen sonatas and published in The Hague in 1766, and here performed in concert in one of the Complete Works Live series. The listed works could be full keyboard sonatas in themselves and the violin part could even be omitted: in each, the violinist is merely echoing the pianist or accompanying the keyboard instrumentalist. The recital also includes two works for piano and violin of a similar structural composition but which are from much later in Mozart’s life. Both of these variations date from June 1781 and are based on ariettas by Antoine Albanèse.