Jeremy Denk and Friends
Mozart Reflected: Violin Sonatas with Interludes in Three Acts
Jeremy Denk is also performing February 1.
Pamela Frank is also performing December 24.
Performers
Benjamin Beilman, Violin
Pamela Frank, Violin
Stefan Jackiw, Violin
Jeremy Denk, Piano
Program
MOZART Violin Sonata in C Major, K. 6
RAVEL Allegretto from Violin Sonata
MOZART Violin Sonata in G Major, K. 301
JOHN ADAMS "Relaxed Groove" from Road Movies
MOZART Violin Sonata in D Major, K. 306
HANDEL Affetuoso and Allegro from Violin Sonata in D Major
MOZART Adagio—Allegro and Andantino cantabile (Theme and Variations) from Violin Sonata in G Major, K. 379
STRAVINSKY Gigue and Dithyrambe from Duo concertant
MOZART Violin Sonata in B-flat Major, K. 378
MOZART Violin Sonata in A Major, K. 305
WEBERN Four Pieces for Violin and Piano, Op. 7
MOZART Violin Sonata in E Minor, K. 304
SCHUBERT Allegro from Violin Sonata in A Minor, D. 385
MOZART Violin Sonata in A Major, K. 526
Event Duration
The printed program will last approximately four hours, including two 20-minute intermissions.
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At a Glance
Over the course of his career, Mozart wrote no fewer than 32 duo sonatas for violin and keyboard. Most of the “juvenile” sonatas—starting with the Sonata in C Major, K. 6—were designed to showcase his virtuosity on the piano and cast the violin in a subordinate role. In contrast, the seven “mature” sonatas on tonight’s program illustrate Mozart’s increasingly evenhanded treatment of the two instruments. Five of these works—K. 301, 304, 305, 306, and 378—date from his tenure as a court musician in the service of Prince-Archbishop Colloredo in Salzburg. Traces of the older violin-accompaniment style linger in the Sonata in G Major, K. 379, written soon after Mozart moved to Vienna in 1781—but in the virtuosic A-Major Sonata, K. 526, the two parts are so intricately interwoven that it’s impossible to say which is the more prominent.
In the spirit of the smorgasbord-type concert programs of yore, Jeremy Denk has interlarded Mozart’s eight sonatas with assorted shorter pieces, ranging from the first two movements of Handel’s expansively conceived D-Major Violin Sonata to Webern’s radically condensed Four Pieces for Violin and Piano. Mozartean echoes, variously filtered through 19th-century Romanticism, 1920s-vintage neoclassicism, and contemporary minimalism can be heard in the excerpts from works by Ravel, John Adams, Stravinsky, and Schubert.