The Mystery of Mozart’s Minuet in D

0:37 Mozart’s operas and the French Revolution
3:10 Revolutionary chromaticism, ‘Amadeus’ and Wagner
7:59 Photo-serial augmented triads
8:50 Speculation: Was this intended for a suite?
10:06 Structure (miniature sonata form) and popular style
11:18 “He hits you with this terrifying thing” (and Ravel), hemiolas and development
13:12 The recapitulation “strange new counterpoints” but is it unfinished?
14:14 Is this bit added by Max Stadler?
15:03 Isn’t it likely that Mozart did something different?” Improvisation…speculation…
15:30 “One more thing…
15:55 Mozart’s Minuet in D K 355 (with animated commentary)

In May 2023, this channel posted a short video about Mozart’s 'Kleine Gigue’ in G major, composed in 1789. The topic of this video is another miscellaneous keyboard work by Mozart, also composed in 1789 (near the end of the composer’s life, the same year he composed his wonderful opera, ‘Cosi fan Tutte’, and pretty much contemporary with the start of the French Revolution). Both the Little Gigue, and this little Minuet in D, display, in their tiny frames, a revolutionary tendency. Both are, in a sense, conventional binary-form pieces but both are saturated with chromaticism to such an intense degree, that tonality itself feels a little unstable. A common feature of the little Gigue in G major, and the little Minuet in D, is that they both seem intent on presenting all 12 chromatic notes in a systematic manner, almost as if Mozart were experimenting with his own version of proto-serial composition.

Mozart’s Minuet was probably left unfinished. There is no manuscript, and the minuet was published with a trio (not performed in this video) composed by Mozart's friend, Maximilian Stadler, who may well have completed the minuet itself - this seems likely, given the slightly conventional and (by Mozart’s standards) unsatisfactory ending of the published version. This video discusses these issues, and features a recording in which Matthew King has improvised a speculative new ending.

Mozart: Minuet in D K 355

Pianist: Matthew King.

This channel's short film about Mozart's 'Little Gigue' can be seen here:    • Mozart's Stunning Tribute To Bach  

Robert Levin’s discussion and reconstruction of Mozart’s Minuet in D can be heard at the start of this lecture:    • Robert Levin: Composing Mozart  

Tchaikovsky’s orchestration of Mozart’s Minuet in D, in his Fourth Orchestral Suite ‘Mozartiana’, can be heard here:    • Tchaikovsky  - Suite No. 4, Op. 61 "M...  


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Edited by Ian Coulter ( https://www.iancoultermusic.com )
Produced and directed by Ian Coulter & Matthew King