In the span of just over three years, W.A. Mozart, along with his father Leopold, toured Italian cities three times. The first in 1770, shortly before his fourteenth birthday, and the last, two years later, returning finally to Salzburg in March 1773, when he had just turned seventeen. In all the cities he was highly honored, in all of them he stunned the audience, in all of them he was commissioned for compositions that he fully completed, but neither in Milan, nor in Rome, nor in Naples nor in Bologna was achieved the goal Leopold intended: get a job for his son, in a renowned court.
On the second tour, Wolfgang had to appear in Milan with a serenade to celebrate the wedding of Archduke Ferdinand, the Governor and Captain-General of Lombardy. "This child will make us all forget" commented a court musician after hearing Mozart's music. This did not prevent Ferdinand from delaying the matter after hearing Leopold's request. The same thing happened on the third tour, scheduled to fulfill the Milanese commission for an opera. This time Leopold went to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, with similar results: "We will consider your proposal," he was told.
But it is Leopold who suffers from all this. It is not the case for the indefatigable Wolfgang, who works tirelessly during these three years to fulfill the countless commissions and, of course, for his own satisfaction.
He corresponds extensively with his mother and his sister Nannerl.
A gift for Nannerl
We believe that Nannerl recalled the pleasant evenings they enjoyed together in Salzburg, playing the harpsichord with four hands. These memories fill her beloved brother with anxiety and will lead him to take a break from the tournées and commitments to sit down to compose, sometime in 1772, a gift for Nannerl and for himself: the Sonata in D major for keyboard four-hands. Wolfgang Amadeus is sixteen years old.
Sonata in D Major for keyboard four-hands, KV 381
Compared to the volume of the rest of his piano writing, the sonatas for piano four hands constitute a very small group in Mozartian output: only five sonatas plus an incomplete one, written between 1765 and 1787. The sonata in D major is the third in chronological order and was not published until 1783.
As it is obvious – considering the composer's youth and the period –, the work is structured in the traditional manner of a classical sonata: fast - slow - fast movements.
Allegro At 00:35 (and then at 1:23): they are barely eight notes but it is impossible not to relate them to the famous Duettino sull' aria from The Marriage of Figaro. (They will have waited fourteen years).
