SONATAINDMAJOR, K.D284“DÜRNITZ”,WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1775)
The composition and premiere of an early opera left the 19-year-old Mozart in Munich for three months in 1775, where he also composed six piano sonatas. The last of these six was the so-called “Dürnitz” sonata, named for amateur bassoonist and regular patron Baron Thaddäus von Dürnitz, and the only one of the six that was published in Mozart’s lifetime. Although the ‘Munich sonatas’ all survive in any case, numbered as the first six sonatas in Mozart’s corpus, the Dürnitz sonata remains unique within all of his sonatas as an epitome of the breadth of tones and textures within the aesthetics of his early style, and of the youthful energy and cheerful sarcasm so frequently associated with it
The first movement, in typical sonata-allegro form, emulates in essence a grand orchestral work, starting with strong octave doublings and maintaining primarily tremolos or repeated notes in the accompaniment, rather than only Alberti bass or other figurations of broken chords pianistic concessions for a smoothness often unnecessary in the bright and driven energy present throughout the movement. The efficient accompaniment also easily supports the moments of orchestral dialogue or simple counterpoint decorating the movement without disrupting its brilliant clarity.
The second movement, though given the more typical tempo marking Andante, is titled “Rondeau en polonaise” (Rondo in the style of a polonaise), and is, functionally, a rondo. At each new introduction of the main section, the theme becomes gradually more elaborate and decorated, changing its melodic rhythm, articulation, and dynamics between various repetitions. The gradual variation of the melody, coupled with sudden accents and dynamic changes, lead somewhat thematically into the last movement:
The third movement is a theme and twelve variations. With an elegantly simple theme, Mozart skilfully unites and juxtaposes the comprehensive variety of characters and textures available to him. In an almost theatre-like manner, each variation has its own, unique personality: one might be inquisitive, and another despairing; one bold, another lazy; yet each variation has in itself great contrasts of character and color. The textural changes highlighting these contrasts showcase a young Mozart’s broad compositional style and his effective application of it into one solo work, with pianistic broken chords, orchestral octave doublings, dialogue and canon, and operatic melodicism and coloratura all featuring within the set of variations.
PIANOSONATA, OP.1,ALBAN BERG (1907-1908)
Alongside his teacher Arnold Schoenberg and fellow pupil Anton Webern, Berg belonged to the Second Viennese School (in reference to the first Viennese School of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven), with which atonality, and later, serialism, is often associated. However, whereas Schoenberg and Webern would eagerly reject the cultural inheritance of Romanticism to develop serialism’s systematic, structural integration of parameters in music, Berg refused to entirely abandon Romanticism, instead developing the connection between the lyricism of Romanticism and the systematization of serialism. As a result, Berg had a much lesser impact than Schoenberg or Webern had on the trajectory of Western classical music for the following half-century; however, his music generally remains more accessible due to its ties to Romanticism.
In the old tradition of composers of waiting to write a meritable piece to publish it with the designation of Opus 1, Berg’s Piano Sonata, Op. 1 was indeed the culmination of his studies with Schoenberg, by which point he had drafted the beginnings of several other sonatas and written many other small works, having started initially with Romantic art songs. This first publication was a one-movement sonata of deliberate, agitated expression, striking the careful balance between the dissonance inherent to the structural and motivic use of tonally unclear scales and harmonies (such as augmented triads, consecutive/stacked fourths rather than thirds, and whole tone scales) with the respite of tonally recognisable harmonies often outside of their typically recognised functions and making clear its other aspects, such as rhythmic flow, melodic phrasing, and thematic development, to deliver a piece both intuitive and unsettling.
If Berg was considered conservative and backward-thinking by his peers in the early 1900s, certainly Rachmaninoff was as far from the stylistic innovations of the century as possible which is to say, he was among the last composers to continue the waning Romantic style. He has, in any case, been vindicated by his popularity with both public and performer, for his satisfying control of sonority, simple and expressive melodies, and pianistically virtuosic, yet generally idiomatic, writing.
The first sonata, however, was, and remains, relatively unpopular and unknown. Though Rachmaninoff was already an established, if unconfident, composer when he wrote it (his ever-beloved second piano concerto was written 7 years ago at the turn of the century), perhaps his simple and expressive melodies were, in this sonata, too simple and not enough expressive. Coupled with a sizable length of approximately 35 minutes long, after appreciable cuts made during revision, and those simple melodies might easily become stagnant. Particularly noticeable in this regard is the first movement, whose meditative second theme comprises ten notes, eight of which are the same note, and appears at the climax of the piece. The sheer simplicity and near stasis of melodic motion and slow harmonic motion forces much greater attention to changes in color and a subtle flow, both of which are generally less memorable than a tuneful melody. The first theme is not much more melodic, nor harmonically directed; it can perhaps be reductively summarised as the repeated alternation between the tonic (D) and dominant (A) notes and some interspersed tonic (D minor) chords. However, this is not to say that it is an entirely bad work; rather, it is understandably underappreciated. While simple, the emotional character and intent of the piece could hardly be clearer, perhaps derived from Rachmaninoff’s original (but unrealised) intent for the work to programmatically illustrate Faust. The quiet defiance and inner turbulence of its opening create a clear narrative frame with its meditative, soul-searching second theme, while a patient but stirring buildup through the development blends the two before arriving at a now triumphant and exalting recharacterization of the second theme, which then quickly fades back into despair.
Compositionally, the first movement also demonstrates Rachmaninoff’s ability to manipulate form and structure and thematically integrate a small number of simple motives into a complex and coherent work. For example, the second theme blurs the structural lines of the piece by morphing into the tonic key (D minor), establishing the transition of the development back into the tonic. Because the second theme typically repeats in the tonic key after the first theme returns, here it obscures the entrance of the recapitulation both thematically and harmonically. The transitional melody between the two primary themes also develops unorthodoxly into its own three-page-long section on its first appearance, functionally takes over the formal entrance of the recapitulation, and reappears in the third movement, reinvented as its own structural section recurring twice more within the movement.
The second movement begins with falling fifths, a parallel with the opening fifths of the first movement. The primary melody is likewise built upon a transitory motive from the first movement the short four-note phrase solidifying the introduction of D major near the end of the movement. It starts with a much more subdued and reflective nature, while secondary voices enter in affirming conversation with it. However, the tranquility cannot last; the middle section of the movement momentarily loses the supporting voices as it restarts the theme in quiet agitation. As the disquiet grows more unbearable, and the other voices rejoin, the piece finally halts entirely before regaining composure to return to the first section, this time with greater security in its warmth and serenity.
The last movement begins with an energetic flourish alternating in a downwards line between the dominant and other notes. (Thus, as the dominant, or fifth, is restated in descending octaves, we may still call it a falling ‘fifth’ though it indeed blends the restatements of the first movement with the falling motion of the second, ending on two falling fifths.) The movement has several melodic themes, but of particular note is the basic cell of a whole step, from which the first two themes (a four-note ascending line and a dotted-rhythm descending march) can be mostly constructed, as well as a triplet chord section that echoes the first movement’s opening dotted rhythms and melodic two-note motives. Additionally, the theme of the second movement originally derived from the first movement reappears twice, now introducing the first movement’s transitional theme, which transforms into a new section underlay by a repeated whole step oscillation. Rachmaninoff also manages to transform the ‘march’ theme into a quote of the iconic Dies Irae chant, and finally, he recalls the second theme of the first movement again at the end of the movement, triumphantly, before a swift return to D minor to close off the piece.