Electrifying Mozart

The pieces linked to this page show Mozart the Master of Counterpoint, having fully assimilated Bach and Haendel's awe-inspiring demonstrations of polyphonic art. Like the Fantasias for mechanical organ, the music lends itself remarkably well to strict FM-synthesized treatment.

The elaborately worked fugue in C minor for two pianos K.426, based on a theme of Baroque ancestry, was composed in december 1783, probably to be played with gifted pupils. This noble piece represents the triumphant conclusion of Mozart's 1782 struggle with the intricacies of the north German style.

Four and a half years later he arranged the work for string orchestra, prefixing it with a profound Adagio introduction, in which tensity and relaxation hypnotizingly alternate. Financial worries were pressing in 1788, and Mozart possibly did the arrangement with a view to make some money: later that year Adagio and fugue were published by F.A. Hoffmeister.

In 1789 Mozart accompanied his friend prince Karl Lichnowsky on a trip to Berlin. Their journey led them through Prague and then Dresden, where Dora Stock drew the silver-crayon shown alongside. They went to Leipzig next, whence originates another relic: on 16 may Mozart noted down ‘a little gigue for keyboard’ in the notebook of K.I. Engel, court organist to the Saxon elector, ‘as a sign of true real friendship and brotherly love.’ The clever G major piece is supposed to be a witty tribute to the memory of Bach and is preceded here by a transposed version of the splendid Overture to Mozart's unfinished C major Suite K.399(385i) for keyboard, written ‘dans le style de G.F. Haendel’ probably in 1782.