Piano Sonata no. 12 in F major

The Piano Sonata in F major by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, K. 332/300k, was written at the same time as the Piano Sonata, K. 330 and Piano Sonata, K. 331 (Alla turca), Mozart numbering them as a set from one to three. They were once believed to have been written in the late 1770s in Paris, but it is now thought more likely that they date from 1783.^[1] Vienna has been suggested as a possible place of composition, with others believing the sonatas were written during a visit to Salzburg where Mozart introduced his wife, Constanze, to his father, Leopold. All three sonatas were published in Vienna in 1784.

Form

The sonata is in three movements and has a conventional structure:

1. Allegro - in sonata form
2. Adagio - a slow movement in the key of B flat major
3. Allegro assai - in sonata form

A typical performance takes about 18 minutes (25 minutes with repeats).

The first movement of the sonata is hymn-like^{[citation needed]} and melodious. This sonata form movement offers "the classic example" of a fake-out of an essential expositional closure half-cadence postmedial caesura extending the secondary theme zone and deferring the essential expositional closure to the next perfect authentic cadence.^[2]

The second movement (adagio) is in ABA form. In the autograph, the return of the principal theme (measures 21 ff.) is essentially a literal repeat of its initial presentation. In the earliest printed editions, however, it is considerably elaborated.

The rapid finale is in 6/8 time. While it starts out with a forte chord and passagework, it concludes with a pianissimo cadence.

References

1. ^ Tyson, Alan (1987). Mozart: studies of the autograph scores. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. pp. 21–35. ISBN 0674588304. 
2. ^ Hepokoski, James; Darcy, Warren (2006). Elements of Sonata Theory: norms, types, and deformations in the late eighteenth-century sonata. Oxford University Press. pp. 159–162. ISBN 0195146409. 

External links

• Sonate in F KV 332: Score and critical report (German) in the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe
• Piano Sonata No. 12: Free scores at the International Music Score Library Project.