Mozart & the Sonata Form
The greatest natural melodist in the history of music: a child prodigy who became the master of every genre, and whose operas changed how the world understood the relationship between music and character.
4.1 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg on 27 January 1756, the seventh child of Leopold Mozart, a violinist and composer at the Salzburg court. Only two children survived to adulthood: Wolfgang and his sister Maria Anna (“Nannerl”), who was herself a formidable keyboard player. Leopold recognized his son's astonishing abilities before the child was four years old and dedicated the rest of his career to promoting them.
Wolfgang could read music at three, compose at five, and perform publicly at six. Leopold took him and Nannerl on the Grand Tour of Europe from 1763 to 1766 — three years of travel through Munich, Vienna, Paris, London, Amsterdam, and dozens of other cities, performing before every royal court in Europe. The child played for Marie Antoinette, George III, and Frederick the Great. He was examined by Diderot, discussed by Grimm, and heard by virtually every important musician on the continent.
By the time he was twelve, Mozart had composed his first symphony, first concerto, and first opera. At fourteen, performing in Rome during Holy Week, he heard the Allegri Miserere — a piece so jealously guarded by the Papal choir that it was forbidden to copy — and wrote it out from memory after a single hearing.
After years of frustration at the Salzburg court, Mozart moved to Vienna in 1781, breaking with Archbishop Colloredo in circumstances of famous ignominy (he was reportedly kicked out). In Vienna he worked as a freelance musician — giving subscription concerts, teaching pupils, composing on commission. The early Vienna years were brilliantly successful; the later years were plagued by financial difficulties. He died on 5 December 1791, aged 35, leaving the Requiem unfinished.
Sonata Form Diagram
4.2 The Sonata Form
Sonata form is not a rigid template but a dramatic process: a journey from harmonic stability through conflict to resolution. It emerged gradually through the mid-18th century, codified by theorists only after the fact (the term “sonata form” was not coined until the 19th century), but the underlying logic was everywhere: in symphonies, string quartets, piano sonatas, and the first movements of concertos.
Two contrasting themes are presented. The first theme is in the tonic (home) key — often energetic and rhythmically forceful. A transition modulates to the dominant key (in minor-key works, to the relative major), where a second, typically more lyrical theme appears. A closing section (codetta) confirms the new key. In sonatas the exposition is usually repeated.
The most dramatic section: the themes from the exposition are fragmented, recombined, and driven through distant harmonic regions. Tension builds to a climax over a dominant pedal point, creating an urgent expectation of the home key's return.
The exposition returns, but now both themes appear in the tonic key — resolving the tonal tension. The second theme, formerly in the dominant, now comes home. A coda (ending) confirms the tonic and brings the movement to a close.
Mozart's mastery of sonata form lay not in following its conventions but in bending them to dramatic effect: a development section of overwhelming emotional turbulence, a recapitulation that returns transformed, a coda that makes a final poetic statement. In his piano concertos, the form is enriched by the dramatic dialogue between soloist and orchestra — a conversation, a competition, a partnership.
4.3 Mozart's Operatic Genius
Mozart's greatest achievement was the transformation of opera into psychological drama. His Viennese operas — the four masterpieces written with librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte — present characters of unprecedented depth: human beings with contradictory desires, divided loyalties, and the capacity for both cruelty and tenderness. The music does not simply illustrate what the characters say; it reveals what they feel and, sometimes, what they conceal.
Le nozze di Figaro (1786)
The Marriage of Figaro. A comedy of class, desire, and forgiveness set in a single frantic day. The Countess's two arias are among the most perfectly beautiful pieces Mozart ever wrote; the Act II finale is the most sophisticated ensemble in opera history.
Don Giovanni (1787)
The Don Juan story as both comedy and tragedy. The libertine seducer confronted by a stone statue of his murdered victim is the archetypal Romantic drama of transgression and damnation. Beethoven and Goethe both considered it the greatest opera ever written.
Così fan tutte (1790)
A philosophical comedy about desire, fidelity, and self-deception. Two men test their fiancees' faithfulness by disguising themselves. Long misunderstood as cynical, it is now recognised as Mozart's most searching opera about the human capacity for self-knowledge.
Die Zauberflöte (1791)
The Magic Flute. A Masonic fairy tale mixing slapstick comedy with the deepest spiritual symbolism. The Queen of the Night's coloratura arias, Pamina's desolate G minor aria, and Sarastro's bass arias represent three entirely different operatic worlds within a single work.
4.4 Symphonies, Concertos, and the Requiem
Mozart wrote forty-one symphonies, of which the last three — Nos. 39, 40, and 41 (“Jupiter”), all composed in the summer of 1788 — are among the greatest in the repertoire. Symphony No. 40 in G minor, with its urgent opening theme and tragic emotional world, anticipates Romantic expression by half a century. The “Jupiter” Symphony ends with a finale that combines sonata form with a five-voice fugue — a final synthesis of the old and new.
His twenty-seven piano concertos are the summit of the Classical concerto. Mozart wrote them for himself to perform in his own concerts; they are both virtuosic display pieces and works of profound musical thought. The slow movements of K. 467 (made famous by the film “Elvira Madigan”), K. 488 in A major, and K. 491 in C minor are among the most beautiful music ever composed.
The Requiem in D minor (K. 626) was commissioned anonymously (the commissioner was Count Walsegg, who wanted to pass it off as his own). Mozart died before completing it; his pupil Franz Xaver Süssmayr finished it from sketches. Its incomplete, haunted quality — a dying man writing his own funeral music — has made it one of the most mythologised works in the repertoire.