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Tuesday, February 08, 2005

Mozart Piano Sonata in F major, K. 332, m. 41-56

In this well known Mozart Piano concerto, there is two phrases between measures 41-56. By this time in the piece, the movement has already modulated to C major, the dominant of the original key. The two eight bar phrases are totally different from each other, sharing only an identical harmonic progression with the exception of the two cadence measures. The first phrase ends with a half cadence and the second on a imperfect authentic cadence. There is no modulation between the phrases, no links, no elisions, and no symmetry.
There are quite a bit of structural phenomena to talk about in the 1st movement of Mozart's K332. The composer puts only a few chromatics and suspensions in this exceprt, hinting at more non-chord tones to come. There is a crescendo from the first phrase piano into forte at the beginning of the seocond phrase that accompanies a register change. Most dramatically, Mozart arpeggiates the left hand in triple, while the right hand remains in two at the beginning of the last half. It provides a striking rhythmic contrast that is not found anywhere else in this piece. Immediately after, to better frame those first two measures of the second phrase, a drop in dynamics to piano occurs. This again leads to a forte at the end of the phrase and the conclusion of this excerpt.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

There is two phrases between 41-56 is there?

Anonymous said...

Hey. I'm laying this piece for my G8 exam and for Haberdasher's scholarship and you gave me some very helpful stuff.

Missy said...

I'm curious why you referred to the sonata as a "piano concerto"; a concerto would involve orchestra parts.

Anonymous said...

wow. this is first of all not a very precise analysis and second a pretty poor one too.
An Analysis for me includes that you can say a bit more about a piece than that it has crescendi and decrescendi.
At the parts where you tried a bit of an analysis you just horribly failed- sorry mate.

Carahallie said...

If C is the dominant, F would be the tonic. There is no F tonality in this piece. It starts in A minor and ends in A major. This is not a very concise analysis, considering you are at a music school.

Chris said...

I agree this is a very inaccurate analysis. First of all, you call this a "well known Mozart Piano concerto" which is wrong- it's a sonata.

In addition, the two eight bar phrases are not "totally different" an in fact share the same basic outline. Bars 41-42 repeat E three times before jumping up to G, meanwhile bars 49-50 also stress E with some mild ornaments (the D#s that lead into E and the F# that approaches G). One could easily call thee measures a 16 bar period divided into two similar phrases of eight bars each.

Then you mistakenly say that the 2nd phrase ends (mm. 55-56) with an imperfect authentic cadence. It is actually a perfect authentic cadence because the bass has root motion from 5-1 (G-C) while the top voice resolves by step from 7-1 (B-C).

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the insight, Jimbo. Everyone, give the guy a break. He obviously knows it's a sonata and not a concerto. Just look at the title of his entry. Also, no F tonality in a piece titled Piano Sonata in F Major? Interesting...