Mozart: The Complete Piano Sonatas

Featuring

Mao Fujita
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

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Composition History

The first five sonatas were composed in 1774–1775 when Mozart was frustrated with his employer, Archbishop Colloredo, and seeking positions in larger cities like Vienna.

Composer Biography

Mozart's Seventh Sonata (K 309) reflects his happiness in Mannheim in 1777, where he fell in love and worked with the Mannheim Orchestra.

Performer Biography

Pianist Mao Fujita was inspired to become a pianist after being transfixed by Vladimir Horowitz's 1986 Moscow recital, particularly Horowitz's performance of Mozart's Piano Sonata No. 10 (K 330).

Composer's Artistic Vision

Mozart, a pianist himself, often treated his sonata scores like jazz charts, improvising and adding phrases or notes during performance.

Compositional Technique

In his early sonatas, Mozart used only 'forte' and 'piano' for dynamics, but this allowed for a spectrum of possibilities in touch and sound acoustics, not just a black-and-white division.

Composer Biography

Mozart's 18 piano sonatas, written between 1774 and 1789, span nearly his entire adult life, from age 18 until two years before his death.

Performer Biography

Mao Fujita later played Mozart's Piano Sonata No. 10 (K 330) in the same hall as Horowitz during the International Tchaikovsky Competition, where he won the silver medal.