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Can anyone resist the appeal of Mozart's music?
I doubt it. You can play it at any age in life because he is an eternal child. Everything about him
suggests play, theatre. His sonatas are theatre too.
Do you tell yourself a story when you play?
Whatever the score, I always need to imagine a scenario. Without that I don't know how to
play.
Tell us about the three sonatas you chose.
We might call the ones in A and B-flat major (K.331, K.333) the
French sonatas
since they were
composed in Paris. Mozart is said to have detested the atmosphere of the city. I don't believe
that. He may have been disappointed but he was too Latin at heart to detest Paris.
As for the third sonata on the programme (K.280), in F major, it was completed in Salzburg.
I have the impression that Mozart wrote it all in one go, in two hours. A kind of improvisation
in fact.
An improvisation you would imagine played on harpsichord or pianoforte?
I think more likely pianoforte. That seems tome the most appropriate instrument of the time
for these scores. Of course, if Mozart had known the modern piano his choice would have
been quicklymade, as indeedwould Bach's. Scarlatti is different. He played the pianoforte but
later dropped it. His music writing doesn't suit the construction of the piano, at least not for
some sonatas. Compared to the harpsichord, the mechanics of the piano make it harder to
play rapidly repeated notes with precision.
ALDO CICCOLINI
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