Classical Music | Piano Music

Recorded on 12/02/2015, uploaded on 07/11/2016

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

While rondos very often are lighthearted mashups of popular song and dance themes, Mozart’s Rondo in a minor, K. 511, infuses this most vernacular of musical forms with uncommonly tragic poignancy. Written in 1787 following a trip to Prague, its principal theme is a plaintive lament that may have been inspired by the death of the composer’s friend, Count August von Hatzfeld.

Modeled after an operatic lament, the main melody consists of a slowly rising chromatic scale, ascending in a processional rhythm against the static bass. Chromaticism and flashes of Sturm und Drang (‘storm and drive’), define the principal material, with stark dynamic contrasts and dark harmonic colors. These sections alternate with contrasting episodes of airy, blissful material in major keys. At one point, an alarmingly dissonant and tortured bridge section leads back to the main theme, and we are privy to Mozart’s most adventurous and forward-looking compositional style, one that could quite believably be attributed to Schumann or even Chopin.      David Kaplan

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.