I am sharing with you the video I heard very early today: violinist David Oistrakh and pianist Paul Badura Skoda performing the music of Mozart.
Mozart completed the Sonata in E flat major, K481, on 12 December 1785, just four days before his piano concerto in the same key, K482.
The unusually quick opening movement is on a large scale, with no fewer than three contrasting themes. Despite the abundance of material, Mozart decided to base the development section on a new idea—a four-note violin motif in long notes, more familiar from its use as the main subject of the ‘Jupiter’ Symphony’s finale. As he so often does when introducing new material in the development, Mozart brings back the same motif in the movement’s coda.
The slow movement is one of Mozart’s most profound, and its changes of key are among his most remarkable experiments, with the music moving at one point from ‘flat’ to ‘sharp’ regions and back again with startling rapidity, and with the two instruments—and even the pianist’s right and left hands—notated briefly in different key signatures simultaneously. Amazing, really!
Here are two extraordinary musicians, David Oistrakh and Paul Badura Skoda to play this music for you:
