WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791)
Songs
Excerpts from the sleeve notes
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Mozart's work in the field of
song composition spans almost the whole of his short life, beginning with
An die Freude, composed in 1768 when he was twelve, and ending with
Das Kinderspiel, written in January 1791, the year of his death...
Though it is probable that Mozart himself set little store by these
thirty-odd offerings, to us they show a side of the composer more intimate, more domestic than we normally see. These
songs encompass pathos, comedy, homespun piety and heartfelt tenderness, sometimes calling forth from their composer performance instructions that we rarely encounter in his more public works...
As for the
piano accompaniments themselves, they range from the most rudimentary unfigured bass lines, the player free to extemporize his own right-hand part (
An die Freude, Die Alte), through to highly sophisticated, richly textured partnerships.
Never mind eh?