No longer a child prodigy, in 1778 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was in Paris trying to build a future as a mature musician and composer. On that year he wrote three new sonatas for piano, which a perceptive musicologist and historian called "Paris sonatas". Of these, the Sonata in A major is the most frequently heard, no doubt thanks to its third movement or "Turkish March" which over the years became one of Mozart's best-known piano pieces.
Mozart´s stay in Paris was the natural consequence of the composer’s unhappiness with his situation in Salzburg as a court musician, a post he had resigned the previous year by means of a sarcastic letter to his employer Prince-Archbishop Colloredo. Unfortunately, after eighteen months of unsuccessful attempts to secure a position in the court of any city with bursting musical life (such as Munich, Paris or Vienna) Amadeus had no other option but to return to Salzburg his tail between his legs. But he carried three published piano sonatas tucked under his arm.
The opera –Idomeneo– was successfully premiered in January 1871. Leopold and Nannerl went to the premiere and on their return, accompanied by Amadeus, they took a well-deserved vacation in Augsburg. Unfortunately, the fun was stopped short by Prince-Archbishop who commanded Mozart to immediately report in Vienna since Colloredo had been invited to the coronation of Joseph II and he would assist along with his small personal court, his keyboardist Mozart included.
The trip to Vienna imposed by the Prince-Archbishop was perhaps the last straw. Mozart realized that the time had come to ditch Colloredo and his prosaic court once and for all. For this reason, he began to act more and more discourteously towards the Archbishop. He started by staying away from the visits that every servant was supposed to pay to Colloredo each morning. Then, he added some other signs of independence and rebellion.
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| Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg, Count Hieronymus von Colloredo, as characterized in Milos Forman's film Amadeus |
Wolfgang mischief did not go unnoticed. Colloredo forced him to arrive at the table after the house servants but before the cooks. For Mozart, this was just too much and he requested an interview with Colloredo, grudgingly granted by the Archbishop. In there, the dispute got out of hand.
This was such an unpleasant situation, that still angers me, more than two hundred years later.
The quarrel
It must have been very tough. In a letter to his father, Wolfgang reports that Colloredo called him "a scoundrel, a rascal, a vagabond". After stoically enduring these insults, Wolfgang asked:
"-So, Your Grace, is not satisfied with me?
To which the Archbishop replied:
"-What, you dare to threaten me, you scoundrel? There is the door! Look out, for I will have nothing more to do with such a miserable wretch."
"At last, I said:
"-Nor I with you"
"-Well, be off."
This is the point where some scholars mention the kick-up-the-backside issue. The strict truth is that the following day Mozart handed in his resignation, which was accepted a month later.
Thus, Wolfgang became the first musician in history who decided to do business single-handedly. To dramatize a little, he would have cut the tickets, helped the audience to their seats and only then he would have sat to play the piano.
This new lifestyle would demand Mozart be aware of fashion. During those years, the European society had a keen ear to the fashionable marches performed by the Turkish Imperial Guard. No doubt, Mozart's Rondo alla Turca would have responded to such trend.
Sonata No 11 in A major - K 331
The sonata is in three movements: Andante grazioso, Menuetto and Rondo alla Turca.
The first movement, unlike the traditional A-B-A structure, consists of a theme and six variations.
At the piano, the Latvian artist Olga Jegunova.
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