Mozart: Piano Sonatas Nos. 11 And 14 / Fantasia In C Minor

Description

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 - 1791) Fantasia in C Minor, K. 475 Sonata in C Minor, K. 457 Sonata in A Major, K. 331 (3001) Ah, vous dirai-je, maman K. 265 (300e) (Twelve variations on a French song)Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in 1756, the youngest child and onlysurviving son of Leopold Mozart. distinguished as the author of a book onviolin-playing, published in the year of his son's birth, and a member of themusic establishment of the ruling Archbishop of Salzburg. Leopold Mozart soonrealised that his son had exceptional gifts and saw it as his duty to doeverything to foster these, sacrificing his own career as a composer to do so.He was appointed Vice Kapellmeister in Salzburg, a position he retained untilhis death in 1787.As a boy Mozart travelled widely, performing as a keyboard-player, withhis eider sister Nannerl, before kings and queens, the nobility and the merelycurious throughout Europe, demonstrating not only precocious technicalaccomplishments but his growing ability as a composer, at first inimprovisation, a necessary part of his art. He also played the violin, aninstrument of which he made little later serious professional use once he hadleft Salzburg. Journeys to Italy widened still further Mozart's experience, withcommissions for operas in Milan, then under Austrian suzerainty. Adolescence inSalzburg, where a new Archbishop had succeeded the family's earlier, moreindulgent patron in 1772, was frustrating. The new Archbishop, a supporter ofthe ecclesiastical reforms of the Emperor, had clear ideas of the duties ofthose in his service, with the result that Mozart, denied permission to travel,in 1777 resigned in order to seek his fortune elsewhere, a process that broughtmusical but not material benefit, as he dawdled in Mannheim and tried to provehimself in Paris. Early in 1779, his ambitions unsatisfied, he returned toSalzburg, still as Konzertmeister, but with the additional position of courtorganist.Late in 1780 Mozart was in Munich for the production of his opera Idomeneo, commissioned by the Elector andinvolving many of his friends from Mannheim. From there he was summoned toVienna to join his patron but deprived of w hat he saw as an opportunity foradvancement in the service of the Emperor, he quarrelled openly with theArchbishop and was dismissed. For the next ten years he remained in Vienna,distinguishing himself at first as a performer, a composer and as a teacher,but finding increasing difficulties in supporting himself and the dowerless wifehe had taken in 1782 from an income that was variable, as fashions came andwent.The decade in Vienna gave Mozart the opportunity he had long desired inthe opera-house, with a successful German opera in 1772, the Singspiel Die Entf??hrung aus dem Serail, followed bythe Italian operas Le nozze di Figaro in1786 and Don Giovanni in the following year. 1790 brought Cost fan tutte and 1791 the opera seria La clemenza di Tito and theGerman Singspiel Die Zauberflote,a magic opera that was