Violin Sonata in E flat major K.380 (1781)-

Ever since he had come across a set of six sonatas for harpsichord and violin by Joseph Schuster in Munich in 1777 Mozart had been convinced that the violin sonata should be a true duo rather than a keyboard sonata with a violin part that could be omitted without causing serious damage to the work. He published examples of his new style in Paris in 1778 and completed a second set in Vienna in 1781, the present Sonata in E flat among them. Although they were published as sonatas “with the accompaniment of a violin” and dedicated to a piano pupil, Josephine Auernhammer, not even she could have played them without an expert violinist.

The Sonata in E flat opens with a dramatic celebration of the relationship between the two instruments, which share and exchange chords with such vigour that melodic interest is all but excluded before the violin introduces the second subject with piano accompaniment. The piano has rather more than its fair share of the development but only until the violin recalls the double-stopped chords which had been so effective in the exposition. It is only in the recapitulation that the piano gets to play the second-subject melody, to which the violin silently consents before provoking a competitive coda.

The piano introduces the G-minor main theme of the Andante con moto, an expressive movement where the two instruments cooperate rather than compete, not least in accomplishing a variety of colour effects in contrasting dynamics. There is a similar mutual concern for colour just before the first return of the main theme of the concluding Rondeau, which is remarkable not only for its teasing pauses at crucial structural points but also the impassioned bravura in the central episode in C minor.