Wow I was on Pandora and Mozart's PIano sonata no 13 in B flat major, played incredibly by Horowitz, came on

Now this is the most complex Mozart piano piece I have yet to listen to.

I dont usually do Mozart, but this was very impressive (well its Horowitz, anything is impressive when he plays it!)


is there kind of a difficulty rating system for Mozart piano works? I would think this one would be very high on that list!

I'd say it's about in the 50th percentile of difficulty for the solo works.

K. 333 is not one of the harder Mozart sonatas. The most difficult technically is K. 576; the hardest to nail down musically is the A minor, K. 310, and technically it's not simple either.

Aren't the concerti overall harder than the sonatas? (I could be wrong.) Either way, as just an example, the last movement of K. 467 looks like a nightmare (but sounds so wonderful when played well, as does all Mozart). When I look back on it, I'm sometimes happy I only pained myself with just the first movement, but I'd love to go back and finish it.

+1


Not to me -- in fact, if anything, sort of the opposite -- because the music and figurations are such that if you can handle it technically and have even just a basic feel for the style, it almost 'plays itself.' Sure, there are musical challenges that separate the good from the very good from the great, but.....maybe we're talking about different things; I think we probably are. I'm talking about how hard or not hard it is to make it 'sound good.'

I'd say K.450 is the most difficult concerto. K.466 isn't far behind, followed by K.491. The finale of the Jeunehomme is a piece of work.

For the solo works, nothing tops K.576, but I think after that comes K.284 (which no one really talks about anymore), assuming the variations are played at a nice, solid pace.

I don't think it's accurate to consider K333 on the easier side. From what I have heard and played I would characterize it as harder than average, though not in the top difficulty group. It's one of the sonatas that decent high school players often master.

Perhaps Kreisler can weigh in here with his view.

Oh, and if you want to play a difficult Mozart piece, try the horn concertos.

P.S. We're working up one of those at my house now. It's a bear. Lip trills, for instance, are rather more difficult than trilling on a keyboard.

ANYTHING on the horn is hard -- I mean, unless you don't care if you get the notes or not. Or in fact anything resembling a musical sound at all.

BTW......who's the horn player?

My son is. Who else? Surely you don't think that "I" would pick up that thirty-foot brass-coil snake and try to blow notes!

If he can pull it off well, there are a couple of concerto competitions he might enter in December and early January.

BTW, he played the K333 two years ago. Check that one off the list!

Wow!
The same son that we know???

Yes, the very same. My youngest also plays, but he's strictly a woodwind guy (flute, piccolo, and penny whistle).

My oldest was blessed with luck. When he was in sixth grade band, his band director told him that he should switch to the horn. Being agreeable, he dumped percussion and picked up the brass monster. After paying his dues, and working past the farting elephant stage, he got lucky again. The teacher we were using, who really wasn't a horn player, moved away. We inquired at the college about who taught the horn, and whether or not the person might have openings. He did indeed have openings, and happily added one more. That person is the principal horn of the Virginia Symphony, and one kick-butt player. Oh, and a heck of a nice guy, too! So Anthony has been under his instruction for five years now. He is finally at a level where he can seriously approach this kind of music. But the horn is such a difficult instrument that you don't want to enter concerto competitions unless you really have the technique down well. Bumbling though a difficult work just doesn't cut it. Anthony had braces for the last two years, and any brass player can tell you what that does for your tone, not to mention your lip! At least he gets his senior year braces free.

If you want to hear a great recording of the one he's working up (no. 3 in E-flat, 1st movement) listen to the Youtube recording by Baumann on the natural horn.

Horn Concerto no. 3, 1st Mov't

The Mozart horn concerti are truly sublime.

Cool!
BTW.....I think 'piano and horn' is a pretty unusual combo for the same person.

Probably most common: piano and violin.
Next most common: also piano and violin.

Piano and guitar too.

Piano, bass (Both kinds), trumpet, sax, accordion, organ.

I don't think thats common.

And has the nicest slow movement of all his piano sonatas, IMO.

What makes 576 so difficult? I've been learning it, and it hasn't seen a teacher yet but it doesn't seem to have any out of the ordinary road blocks. Definitely a finger buster though.

I think everything Mozart wrote is difficult, the music is so beautiful, the sonatas are all so into the ears of the worldpopulation, one couldn't hide any mistakes, and the standard of playing his music has gone sky-high, I must agree with Rubinstein (or whoever else said it): Mozart is easy for young people, impossible for grown-ups, to notice any technical difference between KV 333 and KV 576 would be quite useless, they are both very beautiful and hard, although I prefer 333...and 332...and 331

I'm not too crazy about the arpeggios in K. 533 first movement. K. 310 first movement has a lethal development section and a difficult final page.

I find his later concerti (No. 20 onward) to be difficult, musically and technically.

Schnabel.

The two piano sonata is incredibly difficult to put together. You basically have to play with someone who is your musical twin. Even then, still horribly hard.

I sort of 'cut my teeth' as a pianist (such as I may be) on that piece -- and I think it went quite well with my partner and me, even though we were a bit yin-and-yang. (She played smooth as silk, then I would come in sort of like a jackhammer.)

Fortunately that's an exaggeration but I have a tape of it, and nobody ever has any trouble knowing what's her and what's me.

About half of the Mozart sonata's you can pretty much sight-read through, but to perfect them, its really hard work. To me that is one of the main difference's between him and Haydn, and with Beethoven. 3 very different style's.

Happy birthday, Victor.

I agree with your observation about sight reading the different composers' work. There are obvious exceptions, but as a generalization I think it holds water.

I think Beethoven and Haydn are very easy sightreading as well, but I agree their styles are all very different. It's not the reading that's difficult it's the perfecting that is so darn hard!

I've never played the 310, though I do love it immensely...maybe that will be next on my to do list. The most difficult Mozart I've worked on is the K. 284 which has a really tricky cross-hands development section, but the rest isn't bad.

Haydn I can sight read and almost instantly play
Mozart I can sight read and get a glimpse of what is really going on
Beethoven I can't sight read

I'm talking about the common cases ofcourse. However if you can sight-read beethoven Morodiene, you must be an exceptional player. I mean even just slowly trying to hit the right notes in pieces like op2 (2 and 3), op7, op53, op57, and op101 till 111 is really difficult. I am talking here ofcourse on prima vista. Which might be hard to recall if your really familiar with the pieces.

@pianodad, Thank you so much, you'r the first one who noticed . 23 Now, starting to feel old

Let me clarify: I do mean prima vista, but I am certainly not an exceptional player. I'm a fair sight reader. There certainly are places where I'd have to slow down in any case or just pick a slower tempo overall (Mozart, Beethoven or Haydn), and those would be the spots that would need tons of work perfecting. But reading the notes and figuring out what to play is really not that difficult. Also, late Beethoven is very different from his middle and early period. I would have trouble with op. 101-111 as well, but for some reason op. 53 was easy to read for me (but not easy to play!!). I guess I find it much easier than reading Ravel, Debussy, even Granados I found to be difficult due to the density.

Happy bday, Victor =)

Mark, you should totally post that recording.. Don't worry, I played it with someone long time ago (I think I was 14? oh god) and it was truly terrible. So I'm sure yours is better =P

I'd love to hear it too! My father bought it for me and my sister to work on when we were teenagers. Needless to say, it didn't happen, but I've love to hear it again!

I'm very self-conscious about recordings -- maybe even worse than you!

BTW.....when we played it, we were 18 (her) and 20 (me). I don't think that would necessarily be better than you at 14.