Church Sonata in C

Even with a name as ubiquitous in classical music as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791), there are still works that are rarely heard. With so much of Mozart’s music still in the concert repertory, the cause for a work’s rarity usually lies in some other realm than quality. Consider the many Church Sonatas (sometimes called Epistle Sonatas) that he wrote in Salzburg between 1772 and 1780. These 17 Sonatas were written on demand and served a liturgical function. This alone strikes a somewhat incongruous chord, for we have come to see Mozart as among the first, defiantly independent, freelance composers—breaking away gradually from the dictates of powerful patrons—and gravitating toward secular genres like opera, the concerto, and string quartet. But that period of his life was still in the future. In the mid-1770s Mozart served in the Salzburg court of the archbishop, and resident musicians would certainly be expected to fulfill liturgical needs when they arose. The Church Sonatas could be inserted into the Mass between the Epistle and the Gospel. The Sonata in C Major, K.336, heard this evening is representative: fairly modest in scale, just one movement in length (Allegro), and scored for a chamber organ with two violins and cello. It was also one of the final ones he composed. Shortly after his departure for Vienna in 1781—which led to being fired from the archbishop’s service—the latter opted to include vocal works in that portion of the Mass. From that day on, these delightful miniatures survive as little-known diversions for organists and devotees of Mozart’s lithe, early classical style.

(c) Jason Stell and Tilman Skowroneck