Mozart: Kurfürstin-Sonaten Kv301-306 – Grimal

   in Early Music Today (Sep, 2016)
Dating from 1778 and composed in Mannheim and Paris, the six sonatas for piano with violin accompaniment, K301–306 take their name from the dedication to the Electress Maria Elisabeth. Mozart’s first mature sonatas in the form, the first five are in the galant style, but the final work is not only cast in three movements, but also aims at something grander in scale. Yet, as Stanley Sadie observed, the whole group includes some of the most original music Mozart had written to date. To me this applies especially to movements, such as the wistful Rondeau of K302 and the opening cantabile Adagio of K303, where one senses the near-Romantic yearning of …