Mozart: Piano Sonata in F Major, K. 533/494

Description

Mozart assembled this sonata from two parts that had been composed at different times. The Rondo K. 494 is from 1786. It was only in January 1788 that Mozart composed the two pieces K. 533, and had Hoffmeister in Vienna publish the three movements as a sonata. To this end he did, however, thoroughly rework the Rondo, incorporating a small fugue-like passage - perhaps to bring the finale closer to the other two movements. in its final version the work shows how intensively Mozart had looked into the style of Bach and Handel at the time.

After the composition of the great C minor Sonata there is a turning point in Mozart's sonata output. His writing assumes more subtlety, and a more pronounced inclination to contrapuntal writing – as in the first two movements of the F major Sonata K 533. (Mozart himself later added the F major Rondo K 494 as a third movement for this sonata).