Mozart, Fantasia in D minor

In 1782 Mozart had only been in Vienna for a year, and at the age of twenty-six, he had established himself there as an outstanding piano player and opera composer of some renown. In December of the previous year, he had participated in a "competition" with his colleague Muzio Clementi, which Joseph II, promoter of the candid duel, declared a "draw". Before July 1982 he had completed the opera The Abduction from the Seraglio, inaugurating with it the genre known as singspiel, the German opera sung in German, which earned him all the applause. That same year he married Constanze Weber in August. Also in 1782, he would have probably composed the delightful piano work that every pianist has had to deal with in his early years of training.

Fantasia in D minor, K. 397

The original manuscript of the work has been lost, and since Mozart had not yet begun the useful recording of his own works (which he would begin in 1784), scholars have had no choice but to speculate about the date of composition. Some date the little work around 1782, others are more precise and date it between August and September of that year.

But perhaps the most curious thing is that the work as we know it today does not belong entirely to Mozart, which opens the door to other speculations.

A small unfinished work

One of the prevailing theories holds that the work may have been intended to be part of another sonata, in D major, probably the sonata K. 311 (from 1777-78), abandoned after Mozart found another solution, and therefore much earlier. What is certain is that Mozart left the work unfinished, although today we can hear it "complete" thanks to the collaboration of a composer who "finished" it by adding the ten final bars, a work probably done by the German composer and organist August E. Müller (1767-1817).

A seven-minute Fantasia

As its title indicates, the little piano piece of just over seven minutes in length exhibits an air of improvisation that makes it difficult to characterize it in any recognizable traditional form other than... fantasia.

The finale, contributed by Müller, has not been to the liking of some musicologists who have labeled it "un-Mozartinian." To us, it seems faultless. His valued collaboration begins at about minute 6:02.

The performance is by the Russian pianist Emil Gilels.