JEFF MANCHUR: PIANIST
  • Home
  • Biography
  • Now Happening
  • Pianist
    • Mozart in a Month
    • Choosing Joy
    • Audio and Video
    • Repertoire
  • Blogger
  • Teacher
  • Contact
  • Home
  • Biography
  • Now Happening
  • Pianist
    • Mozart in a Month
    • Choosing Joy
    • Audio and Video
    • Repertoire
  • Blogger
  • Teacher
  • Contact
Search

Mozart's Church Sonatas

9/21/2018

Comments

 
The movie Amadeus presents the caricature of Mozart from ‘rival’ Salieri’s perspective: besides the young buffoonery, the older composer is genuinely astounded that Mozart is an endless source of raw musical inspiration. Melodies come to him without effort. The music writes itself.

Of course this is a dramatization, and an exaggeration: we know that Mozart was surrounded by music from a young age, and that he put in the effort and study to become an expert musician. I’m not one to believe in born musical talent, but if anyone’s life was primed for music genius to natural it seemed genetic, it was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

You appreciate this caricature of Mozart in Amadeus when you listen to the obscure works in his catalogue. We know the hundreds, thousands of melodies from his best known genres: operas, symphonies, piano concertos, sonatas, string quartets. But there’s so much out there that we never hear. Last month I was listening to several of the flute quartets, this month I listened to the Church Sonatas (sometimes called Epistle Sonatas). 

I can’t imagine many people have listened to these works, some 17 short works written mostly when Mozart was a young professional church musician in Salzburg. I will admit that when I saw this genre, I assumed they were some inconsequential choral works, written for immediate practical use in the liturgy. 

It turns out, these Church Sonatas are mini-symphonies. They seem to take Sonata-Allegro form, and use small forces: a few instruments with continuo. Some recordings play one instrument to a part, how Mozart would have heard them, but some, such as the Daniel Chorzempa album on the accompanying playlist, use filled out orchestral forces. On a few occasions, the organ continuo takes a soloist role. Who knew that Mozart wrote organ concertos!

It turns out these works were written for a practical purpose: to fill ceremonial time between scripture readings in the liturgical service where Mozart served as church musician. These works probably were written in the same key as the Mass service used that day, Mozart was simply adding his style as an interlude to this sacred music.

But these pure orchestral works are excellent pieces. The themes are memorable, and are treated with the same compositional finesse we would expect from any substantial work by Mozart. Though short, these Church Sonatas are a trove of melodies that few Mozart fans get to appreciate. Realizing that these works exist lends credence to that fictionalized view of the composer in Amadeus: it was as if he was able to create melodies effortlessly on divine inspiration. 

​
Comments

    Subscribe to my mailing list for updates on my activities and special access to my recordings and performances.

    * indicates required


    ​"Modern performers seem to regard their performances as texts rather than acts, and to prepare for them with the same goal as present-day textual editors: to clear away accretions. Not that this is not a laudable and necessary step; but what is an ultimate step for an editor should be only a first step for a performer, as the very temporal relationship between the functions of editing and performing already suggests." -Richard Taruskin, 
    ​Text and Act

    Archives

    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    June 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011

    Categories

    All
    Alex Ross
    Amy Beach
    Artistic Messages
    Artistry
    Audio
    Bach
    Best Practices
    Boring
    Chamber Music
    Chiara
    Chopin
    Clapping
    Cliburn Competition Report
    Competitions
    Concert Reflections
    Contemporary Music
    Creativity
    Enjoying
    Extraordinary Recordings
    Glenn Gould
    Influential Books
    Intellectual
    Learning
    Listening
    Liszt
    Messiaen
    Mozart In A Month
    Nature
    Performance Practice
    Performance Traditions
    Pianistic Intentions
    Piano Business
    Practicing
    Richard Dare
    Richard Taruskin
    Rising Stars
    Serialism
    Subjectivity
    Teacher Sayings
    Teaching
    Textual Fidelity
    Time
    Video

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Home
  • Biography
  • Now Happening
  • Pianist
    • Mozart in a Month
    • Choosing Joy
    • Audio and Video
    • Repertoire
  • Blogger
  • Teacher
  • Contact