MOZART Rondo in A minor, K. 511 - Jonathan Biss

Mozart is the most objective of the great composers. Neither an optimist nor a pessimist, Mozart is simply a realist - a stenographer of emotion. If this sounds cold, the results are anything but. Mozart’s mind is so omniscient, his understanding of psychology is so sophisticated - and, of course, his mastery of his craft is so staggering - he can convey, in sound, the changeability and illogic of human feeling and the frequent stupidity of human behavior in a way that is both unnervingly precise and deeply moving. With a single harmonic shift, he can move from exhilaration to melancholy; with another, he can leave the melancholy behind, laughing or shrugging it off. His music, like our inner lives, is in a constant state of flux.
What, then, accounts for the Rondo in A minor, K. 511? For the entirety of its ten devastating minutes, it drops any hint of third-person remove, and for the great majority of them, it conveys a profound, inescapable grief. Written early in 1787, when Mozart was 31, no biographical detail helps explain its genesis. The E minor Violin Sonata, K. 304 and the A minor Piano Sonata, K. 310, are similarly uninterrupted expressions of anguish - but they come in the immediate aftermath of the unexpected and likely preventable death of Mozart’s mother, whom he adored. By contrast, the beginning of 1787 was a relatively happy and stable time in Mozart’s complicated life. The motivation for the A minor Rondo is as inexplicable as is the devastating impact it has on the listener.
The A minor Rondo is extraordinary among Mozart’s works not only for its single-mindedness, but for its extreme compression. This is a function not primarily of the density of its events, but of the notes themselves: this is surely the most chromatic work Mozart ever composed. This produces countless points of tension - the intervals that open the first and second measures of the piece are so uncomfortable, they produce a physical sensation in the body. But equally, this chromaticism conveys a difficulty in moving, the sense of being stuck, trapped. The notes are too close together; the effort in rising a mere fifth, as happens over two full measures in the first phrase, is so exhausting, the only possible response is to fall back down to where we started. It is a declaration of hopelessness, just moments into the piece.
For all the ways in which the a minor Rondo is atypical, it is vintage Mozart in that it owes so much to the world of opera. This is less a question of the vocal quality in it - achingly beautiful though it is - and more a function of how deeply attuned Mozart is to how the piece works as a narrative. As the name “Rondo” would imply, its principal material is twice interrupted by a contrasting episode. Both episodes are in the major mode, bringing, if not actual hope, then the possibility of hope; both lead back to the a minor music of the opening by way of a transitional passage even more claustrophobically chromatic than the main theme itself. These brief windows into a less bleak world make the one we come back to ever bleaker.
Bleaker still is the coda. As is so often the case with Mozart’s codas, it draws its power in part from its superfluousness; Mozart has already said everything that needs saying. But he is not finished. Incorporating suggestions of the two major-key episodes, and transforming them into music as desolate and oppressive as the rest of the piece, he then brings the opening idea back one last time. It is chromatic as ever, but shortened to a mere fragment, as if the effort required to play the phrase in its entirety is by now simply impossible. This fragment was once a beginning, an invitation to more music; it has now become an answer, a devastating confirmation that the grief will not assuaged. All that can follow it is a two-note pianissimo cadence, the ultimate expression of resignation, bringing this singular masterwork to a whispered, shattering close. (Jonathan Biss)
Recorded live at the Victoria Concert Hall, Singapore, on 10 June 2023 at the 29th Singapore International Piano Festival.
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/ @singaporesymphony

[@tinkerchel]

Jonathan has this wonderous talent when it comes to slow pieces, where he could string all the notes together like a pearl necklace in one organic seemingly effortless breath start to finish. Each pearl shines. I'm mesmerized.
Absolutely in love with his Beethoven's Bagatelle Op. 126 no. 3, Op.109, 3rd movt, "Pathetique" 2nd movt... ...his Schumann(fast or slow) is also incredibly sincere and touching😌
When I first heard Claudio Arrau's rendition of this piece, I HAD to put it on repeat and listen obsessively..What a miraculous composition, what a nuanced interpretation. And Jonathan's rendition is my fav among the living pianists🎶

[@Punch_is_thinking]

Woah the color and articulation ❤️