MOZART VARIATIONS AND SONATAS FOR PIANO AND VIOLIN/4 Presented by Liszt Academy

If the name Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and the expression ‘incomplete’ are placed alongside each other, most people think first of the composer’s final work, Requiem (K. 626), completed by Franz Xaver Süssmayr. However, this is not Mozart’s only work that remained a fragment and was added to by a contemporary. Of his 36 sonatas for piano-violin, four were finalized by Abbé Maximilian Stadler, who became a good friend of Mozart in the late 1780s, and then moved to Vienna in 1796 partly to oversee the legacy of his colleague who died tragically young. This fourth concert in the Complete Works Live series includes three part-sonatas finalized by Stadler as well as two two-movement pieces dating from 1781, soon after Mozart arrived in Vienna, and the B-flat major sonata (April 1784), which was composed for the violinist and guitarist Regina Strinasacchi from Mantua. According to legend, the debut was planned for a Vienna concert featuring the Italian guest artist one week after the work was to have been completed, but Mozart only had time to write out the violin part and thus he sat down at the piano and played with a blank score.