Angela Hewitt

Mozart and Schumann

(Fri 6 Oct 2023 8.00pm  Little Missenden Church)

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Angela Hewitt piano

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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Rondo in D major K485; Sonata in F major K533/494; Twelve Variations K265

Robert Schumann: Sonata no1 op11 in F# minor

Programme Notes (also available free at concert)

Constructed with typical ingenuity, Mozart’s Twelve Variations on the French folksong Ah, vous dirai-je, Maman (Twinkle twinkle little star to us) was written when he was 25 and became an instant hit with amateur players. The later K485 Rondo is another of the composer’s most familiar and well-loved works. It’s cheerful and unfailingly upbeat, playfully toying with our expectations.

The K533/494 Piano Sonata came late in Mozart’s career. It’s a fascinating piece, expanding traditional sonata form and, particularly in the beautiful andante, full of rich tonal variation and harmonic dissonance.

Fifty years later, Schumann’s op11 shows us how much the piano sonata had changed. Composed in the mid-1830s when he had recently met Clara and their relationship was beginning to develop, the work’s a love poem – “a solitary outcry to you from my heart” as he later described it to her. The Eusebius and Florestan personae he so often invokes to contrast the reflective and exuberant sides of his character are both in evidence, especially in the beautiful aria second movement, which is followed by a wildly inventive scherzo.