Mozart - Piano Sonata No. 11 in A Major, K. 331 (Analysis)

Mozart at a period fortepiano, with visual references to the three movements of Piano Sonata No. 11, K. 331.

From the gently rocking variations to the lively tread of the Alla turca, three different voices of the piano meet in Mozart’s Sonata K. 331.

Work Information

Composer:: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791)
Title:: Piano Sonata No. 11 in A major, K. 331 / 300i
Year of composition:: Uncertain; traditionally 1783, with a more recent argument for an earlier date
First edition:: Vienna, Artaria, 1784; advertised on 25 August
First performance:: Not documented
Genre:: Sonata for solo piano
Musical Period:: Classical
Structure:: Three movements
Duration:: approx. 18–25 minutes, depending on tempo and repeats
Instrumentation:: Piano; historically, fortepiano
Reference score:: NMA (1986); later findings: Henle HN 1300 (2021)

Mozart’s Piano Sonata No. 11 in A major, K. 331 is often encountered through its celebrated finale, the “Turkish March”. Yet the music leading up to it is far more substantial than that familiar excerpt might suggest. The sonata begins not with a fast movement in sonata form but with a theme and six variations; a Menuetto and Trio follow, before the brilliant Alla turca closes the work. What holds these contrasting movements together is not a single mood but Mozart’s imaginative treatment of recurrence, keyboard texture and the relationship between A major and A minor.

Opening with theme and variations invites a particular kind of listening. First, Mozart introduces a melody with a recognisable shape and harmonic course. We then follow it through changes of rhythm, accompaniment, register and expressive colour. By the time the finale arrives, the keyboard has already assumed several distinct musical identities. The “Turkish March” is therefore the culmination of a larger design, not the whole story of the sonata.

Artaria published the sonata in 1784, together with the C-major Sonata K. 330 and the F-major Sonata K. 332. Mozart’s letter of 12 June to his father records that he had delivered the three works for engraving, having previously sent them to his sister Maria Anna. An advertisement in the Wiener Zeitung on 25 August provides a secure landmark in their publication history. The circumstances in which the music was first composed are considerably less certain.

An older attribution to Paris in 1778 gave way to a proposed date of 1783, in Vienna or Salzburg, following study of the handwriting and paper. A Viennese manuscript copy brought to scholarly attention in 2016 reopened the question. On the evidence of its copyist’s hand, Dexter Edge and Wolf-Dieter Seiffert argued for an earlier origin, around the beginning of the 1780s. That dating is a scholarly conclusion rather than a date inscribed on the source. Neither a precise year of composition nor a particular pupil or occasion can therefore be stated without qualification.

Publication also involved changes to the musical text, especially its dynamic markings. Differences between manuscript and print need individual assessment: some can reflect the composer’s revisions, while others arose during copying or engraving. The discovery of four autograph pages in Budapest in 2014 supplied valuable new evidence, although it did not restore Mozart’s complete manuscript.

The designation “No. 11” comes from later numbering, while “Turkish March” properly names the finale, not the complete work. Heard on its own, that movement can overshadow the scale of the variations and the Menuetto’s more subtle contrasts. Heard complete, K. 331 allows the same instrument to sing, dance and suggest percussion, each through a different arrangement of melody, accompaniment and register.

Movements / Structure

The three-movement design combines contrasting characters with closely related tonal areas. A major anchors the first two movements; the finale opens in the parallel minor and concludes in the major. The first movement is the longest, and its internal sequence includes both an Adagio and an Allegro variation. The sonata consequently offers more changes of pace than its three movement headings might initially imply.

Movement	Key and metre	Form and character
I. Andante grazioso	A major; 6/8, changing to 4/4 in Variation VI	Theme and six variations: lyrical opening, minor-mode contrast, Adagio and Allegro.
II. Menuetto — Trio	A major; D-major Trio; 3/4	Dance movement with a contrasting Trio and return of the Menuetto.
III. Alla turca — Allegretto / Allegrino	A minor → A major; 2/4	Recurring sections and coda; agile phrases contrasted with a sonorous refrain.

None of the three movements follows conventional sonata form. Instead, each explores recurrence in a different way: the first transforms an established theme, the second brings back its Menuetto after the Trio, and the finale sets familiar sections among contrasting episodes. We recognise the returning material, but its place in the musical journey alters how we hear it. The move towards a more extrovert close is a persuasive reading of the design, not a programme that Mozart is known to have supplied.

Musical Analysis

I. Andante grazioso — A theme and its six transformations

The Andante grazioso begins with a melody that is easy to retain after a first hearing. Its 6/8 metre, dotted rhythms and discreet chordal accompaniment suggest the lilting manner of a siciliana, a dance type frequently associated with lyrical expression. This is a description of the music’s character, not a title Mozart wrote in the score. The beat is best felt in two larger pulses per bar rather than six equally stressed quavers.

The theme has two repeated sections, eight and ten bars long. In the first, the opening four-bar phrase leaves the harmony poised on the dominant, E, and the answering phrase brings a firmer close in A major. The second section moves away from that initial stability, recalls familiar material and expands the final cadence. Its additional two bars give the ending room to settle without undermining the theme’s overall balance.

Example 1 shows the first four-bar phrase. A restrained chordal accompaniment supports the melody, while slurs help articulate its smaller groups. Even without reading the notation, we can hear that the phrase has not quite arrived: its close on the dominant leaves an expectation of what comes next. Remembering that sense of continuation will help us recognise the theme beneath the changing textures of the variations.

Opening four-bar phrase of the A-major theme in 6/8.

Variation I adds agile semiquaver figures around the melody’s outline. Greater surface activity need not entail a faster basic tempo. The phrase supports and cadences continue to organise the movement, while rapid motion gradually extends into the left hand as well. The pianist has to bring out the line’s direction through its decoration, allowing the listener to hear continuity rather than a succession of attractive flourishes.

In Variation II, the balance between the hands changes. Right-hand trills and short embellishments coexist with an active left-hand accompaniment, including semiquaver triplets. The upper line can articulate the theme in more widely spaced notes because the accompaniment now supplies much of the ongoing movement. Elsewhere the activity passes between the hands. The resulting liveliness comes from that redistribution of musical roles as much as from the increased number of notes.

Variation III turns to A minor and alters the character more fundamentally. Continuous semiquavers and long slurs join small movements into sustained phrases. Changed scale degrees and harmonic supports give greater tension to the familiar pattern: its cadences carry more weight, and its melodic course sounds less untroubled. The accompaniment maintains the pulse, keeping the change of expression connected to the preceding music. A minor will also provide the finale’s point of departure, linking two quite different moments in the sonata.

In Variation IV, A major returns, but the keyboard itself now becomes the source of contrast. The left hand crosses above the right to play high notes while the right hand remains active in the middle register. More than a feat of coordination, the crossing separates the upper interjections from the line unfolding below and gives each its own colour. A related exchange between registers will return in the Trio.

Variation V, Adagio, allows the theme’s singing quality a more expansive time frame. Trills, fine rhythmic values and decorated cadences suggest the embellishment of a repeated vocal melody. Beneath that ornamentation, the theme’s harmonic relationships remain in place. Its arrivals and suspensions can still guide the ear even when the melodic surface has become elaborate. Expressive freedom therefore works best when the phrase retains a clear destination and the underlying pulse remains intelligible.

Variation VI, Allegro, changes both tempo and metre, replacing the compound 6/8 with 4/4. The shift affects more than speed. A new distribution of accents gives the melody a straighter, more decisive tread. Example 2 shows the beginning of the transformation: the A-major key signature remains, but the original rocking motion has been reorganised into a different kind of movement.

Opening of Variation VI, Allegro, in 4/4.

Rapid scales, changes of direction and an extended conclusion turn the final variation into a miniature finale. The movement does not simply settle back into the theme’s original calm. Mozart has progressively enlarged its possibilities, moving through decoration, redistributed texture, the minor mode, contrasts of register and expansive vocal ornament before arriving at faster motion. The sequence remains coherent because these new characters continue to refer to the opening harmonic and phrase design.

II. Menuetto — Dance weight and exchanges across the keyboard

The Menuetto establishes A major with a more definite sense of dance. Its 3/4 metre, chordal texture and dynamic contrasts immediately distinguish it from the variations. Elegance is only part of its character: melodic leaps and exchanges between forceful statements and gentler replies give the music animation and a degree of theatrical presence. The first beat has weight, but the phrase must continue to move beyond it.

The opening section presents its material with readily audible punctuation. In the longer second section, harmonic movement and a more continuous accompaniment create temporary unrest before the opening returns. Recognising that return is central to the experience. What initially sounded like an assertion now restores a balance that the intervening music has disturbed. A consistent dance pulse allows changes of texture and density to register clearly without fragmenting the movement.

The Trio in D major brings a lighter manner without moving far from the sonata’s home key: D is the subdominant of A. Melodic activity lower on the keyboard alternates with high interjections produced by hand crossings. These contrasts are playful, but the phrase remains continuous even as its notes move between registers. The effect is musical dialogue rather than a display of keyboard acrobatics.

Menuetto da capo then restores the original dance. The return completes a broad three-part design whose individual sections contain their own repetitions. Recognition and recurrence remain fundamental to the sonata, although they work differently here from the repeated harmonic framework of the first movement. In performance, the Menuetto’s fuller weight and the Trio’s lighter mobility need distinct profiles, with enough movement to prevent the dance from becoming rigid.

III. Alla turca — A minor and the brilliance of A major

The finale begins softly in A minor. A short semiquaver figure circling A leads into clipped notes and brief rests above a spare accompaniment. The contrast between a quick preparation and a sharply articulated arrival gives the phrase its agility. Within the opening large section, a passage towards C major broadens the tonal colour before the A-minor material returns.

At bar 25, a forceful A-major refrain changes the sound at once. Forte octaves in the melody are supported by rapid arpeggiations that spread the accompanying chords just before their principal notes. The keyboard acquires a more emphatic, almost percussive attack. Example 3 illustrates the first appearance of this refrain, including the upbeat that precedes bar 25.

First A-major refrain, with octaves and arpeggiated accompaniment.

The next large region starts in F-sharp minor, A major’s relative minor. Continuous semiquavers take over from the refrain’s clearly separated octaves. A brighter internal section in A major intervenes before F-sharp minor returns. The passage is consequently more varied than the single label “episode” might suggest: it has its own internal contrast and recurrence, while maintaining a more continuous surface motion than the refrain.

A practical large-scale map is A–B–C–B–A–B–Coda. A represents the opening region, bars 1–24; B is the A-major refrain; C is the region beginning in F-sharp minor. This diagram summarises the principal blocks rather than every repeat or smaller phrase. The customary description “rondo” is helpful in drawing attention to recurrence, provided we do not expect one theme to occupy every central position from the opening onwards.

When the entire opening A-minor region returns, the ear recognises a larger reprise than the brief refrain alone can supply. The last A-major refrain introduces broken octaves, increasing activity while preserving the melody’s essential outline. This small change in keyboard distribution gives familiar material a fresh edge and prepares the more extended close.

The coda stays in A major, enlarging the percussive character through chords, octaves, rapid figures and marked dynamic contrasts. Its quieter passage sustains the direction towards the final renewal of the fuller sound. The major key is firmly confirmed at the end, after A minor has supplied much of the finale’s mobility and contrast. The result depends on the distinction between these characters, rather than uninterrupted loudness or speed.

The live performance by Olga Jegunova is retained from the original article. It includes the complete sonata, allowing its three contrasting movements to be heard within a continuous musical journey.

A sonata without sonata form

A sonata and sonata form are not the same thing. Here, the first term names a multi-movement keyboard work; the second describes a particular way of constructing an individual movement, commonly through exposition, development and recapitulation. This distinction explains why K. 331 is unquestionably a sonata even though no movement adopts that formal plan. The genre does not prescribe the same design for every composition.

Mozart connects the three designs through recurrence. In the variations, a repeated harmonic route gives the listener a stable point of reference beneath a changing surface. In the dance movement, the Menuetto’s return closes the distance opened by the Trio. In the finale, recurring sections create landmarks between larger contrasting regions. Coherence emerges from these different experiences of return rather than a shared formal template.

The tonal centre on A strengthens the connection. Moving to the parallel minor changes the arrangement of intervals and the expressive character while retaining the same tonic. The Trio’s D major and the finale’s F-sharp minor extend the tonal range into closely related territory. Hand crossings in Variation IV and the Trio provide another concrete relationship between movements. These features support a connected hearing of the sonata without proving that all its themes derive from a single concealed melody.

The piano as a small musical theatre

Three eighteenth-century musical characters meet in K. 331: the lyrical sway associated with the siciliana, the social dance of the Menuetto, and the theatrical animation of alla turca. Mozart does more than place them side by side. He translates each into the resources of the solo keyboard, repeatedly changing the relationship between melody, accompaniment, articulation and register.

In the fifth variation, Adagio, elaborate ornamentation recalls a singer varying a familiar melody while preserving its phrasing. In Variation IV and the Trio, movement between high and low registers creates exchanges across the keyboard. In the finale, clear attacks, octaves and repeated accompanying figures suggest a more percussive ensemble. Through these changes of role, a single piano takes on a striking variety of musical colours.

What “alla turca” means

In late eighteenth-century European music, the “Turkish” style drew on impressions of Ottoman military bands, particularly their percussion. European composers developed a recognisable set of conventions from those impressions: emphatic pulse, high sounds, abrupt contrasts and persistent rhythmic patterns. K. 331 participates in that European representation; it does not reproduce an identified piece of Ottoman military repertory.

Die Entführung aus dem Serail, K. 384, first performed in Vienna in 1782, provides an important parallel in Mozart’s own work. The sonata translates related effects into keyboard terms. A forceful melody in octaves, quick arpeggiated accompaniments and piano–forte contrasts establish the association without an actual percussion section. Because the date of K. 331 remains disputed, the opera and sonata should not be placed in a confidently asserted sequence of direct influence.

No evidence establishes that this finale required a fortepiano with a special percussion mechanism. Familiar “Janissary” stops belong chiefly to later instruments. For this sonata, the more revealing question is how the ordinary resources of the keyboard produce the imagined band’s character. The rhythmic articulation and texture already provide the necessary effects.

Reading the sonata’s different sources

An autograph, a manuscript copy and a first edition may preserve different stages in a work’s development. Comparison is essential in K. 331 because Mozart’s own score survives only in part and the engraver’s model is lost. Editorial judgement must distinguish creative changes from omissions and misreadings, assessing individual differences rather than automatically accepting every printed marking or every divergent reading in a copy.

The finale’s heading is a useful case. The early Viennese copy and first edition give Allegrino, whereas Allegretto became familiar through many later editions and appears in the 1986 Neue Mozart-Ausgabe. Alla Turca occurs in the first edition but is absent from the early copy. Since Mozart’s autograph opening of the movement is missing, neither the precise wording of his initial tempo indication nor responsibility for the added heading can be established conclusively. Allegrino alone cannot justify a particular performance speed.

The musical examples here reproduce selected passages from the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe, identified in their captions. Questions of transmission are considered in the light of later discoveries and Wolf-Dieter Seiffert’s revised preface and critical commentary. This distinction has practical value: an established older edition can remain useful for studying a work’s structure while particular readings require reconsideration when new evidence emerges.

Performance between fortepiano and modern piano

A fortepiano of Mozart’s time generally offers a quicker decay and more pronounced differences of colour between registers than a modern concert grand. Its lighter action encourages rapid articulation and immediate contrasts. A modern piano’s longer sustain opens other possibilities for the singing line, but calls for careful pedalling if harmonic changes and inner voices are to remain distinct.

In the theme and variations, the principal task is continuity of phrasing. Richer decoration should not obscure where the music is going. Variation III needs a change of colour without an arbitrary disturbance of the pulse; Variation V permits greater flexibility within its written Adagio. The sixth variation derives its energy from clear articulation and its new metrical organisation as well as increased speed. In each case, the pianist shapes a different character while preserving the listener’s orientation.

The Menuetto’s first-beat weight must coexist with forward movement through the phrase. In the Trio, crossings divide a continuous line among different registers. In the Alla turca, excessive speed can flatten the distinction between clipped replies, running semiquavers and the sonorous refrain. A performance becomes more revealing when those three kinds of movement remain recognisable and dynamic contrasts contribute to form as well as excitement.

🪶 A Chapter in the Life of the Work

Four pages without a name

In the spring of 2014, Balázs Mikusi, a musicologist and head of the Music Collection at the National Széchényi Library in Budapest, was examining a folder of unidentified musical manuscript fragments. Among them was a folded sheet with music written on all four pages. There was no title and no composer’s name. To establish where it belonged, the evidence would have to come from the handwriting and the notes themselves.

Mikusi recognised Mozart’s handwriting and identified the music as part of the A-major Sonata, K. 331. The pages began with Variation III, continued to the end of the first movement and contained the Menuetto and the beginning of its Trio. The missing title now made sense: this was an inner portion of the score, not its opening. A substantial part of the composer’s own manuscript had remained in the library without being identified as such.

The Budapest pages were not the first surviving trace of the manuscript. A separate leaf containing music from the finale was already known in Salzburg. Comparing paper and handwriting helped establish how the two discoveries belonged together. The Budapest fragment was the inner of two folded sheets, once nested one inside the other. Including the separate Salzburg leaf, the original manuscript can be reconstructed as five physical leaves carrying nine written pages. The outer folded sheet, which contained the beginning of the sonata, remains missing.

Finding the manuscript also meant that familiar notes could be checked against Mozart’s own writing. In bar 3 of the Menuetto, for instance, many later editions ended the right-hand phrase on C-sharp. Mozart had written A. The discrepancy had developed through the work’s transmission: the first printed edition gave A when the phrase appeared initially, but C-sharp at its return. Later editors made the two occurrences agree by changing the opening to C-sharp as well. The manuscript revealed that Mozart had not written out two different versions; for the return, he had directed the copyist back to the opening phrase. A small inconsistency in print had therefore shaped the music many pianists came to read and play.

On 26 September 2014, a few months after the identification, the discovery was presented publicly at the library during Researchers’ Night. Ulrich Leisinger, research director of the Salzburg Mozarteum Foundation, introduced the manuscript leaf already known in Salzburg. Mikusi then presented the newly identified Budapest pages. Bringing these two parts of the evidence together set the stage for a further demonstration: what difference could the surviving manuscript make when the sonata was actually played?

The Hungarian pianist and conductor Zoltán Kocsis provided the musical answer. He performed the complete sonata on a replica of a fortepiano from Mozart’s time, incorporating readings supported by the manuscript. The differences between sources were no longer solely matters for editors examining a page. Listeners could hear them in the course of the work, from the variations to the Menuetto, as details of a composition they thought they already knew.

In 2015, the library made digital reproductions and explanatory material available through a dedicated website. How the pages had originally entered its collection remained unknown: no surviving inscription identified an earlier owner. But the fragment was anonymous no longer. Catalogued as Ms. Mus. 15.289, it could now be studied alongside the editions pianists had used for decades. The discovery had restored part of the sonata’s manuscript history and clarified details of the music still heard in performance.

🎧 Listening Guide

For a first hearing, follow the main changes of character. On returning to the work, keep the theme’s melody in mind and notice how its phrases survive beneath different kinds of motion.

Question and answer. Listen to the opening four-bar phrase leave an expectation of continuation, then hear the answering phrase provide a firmer close. This relationship remains a useful guide when the variations make the surface more elaborate.

Which hand is moving? In the first two variations, turn briefly from the melody to its accompaniment. Fast activity changes position, and the left hand becomes an active participant rather than a steady background.

Variation III. The move to A minor changes the harmonic colour while continuous quick notes maintain the flow. Notice how a different expressive tension can emerge without introducing a wholly new theme.

High interjections. In Variation IV, follow the notes that stand above the middle register. Listen for a related exchange later in the second movement’s Trio.

Adagio into Allegro. The fifth variation stretches its decorated phrases over slower time; the sixth changes their tread by moving into 4/4. Attend to the altered pulse as well as the increase in speed.

The returning Menuetto. After the more playful Trio, recognise the opening phrase and the restoration of the fuller dance texture.

Three kinds of motion in the finale. Distinguish the clipped opening phrases, the central region’s running semiquavers and the strong refrain in octaves. At the refrain’s last return, broken octaves increase its activity before the coda.

🎶 Further Listening

These choices offer three points of comparison: the fortepiano’s differentiated registers, the sustained melodic possibilities of a modern grand and a highly individual rethinking of the music’s proportions.

Kristian Bezuidenhout — fortepiano, harmonia mundi, Mozart: Keyboard Music, Vols. 5 & 6 (2014). The historical instrument’s quick decay makes articulation, accompaniments and high interjections especially distinct. Compare the fifth variation’s singing line with the finale’s more percussive sonority.
Mitsuko Uchida — modern piano, Philips. Her recording offers a valuable point of reference for melodic continuity and the changing character of the variations. Listen particularly to how the modern piano’s longer sustain carries a phrase while preserving the distinction between melody and accompaniment.
Glenn Gould — modern piano, Mozart Piano Sonatas, Vol. 4, Columbia/CBS, subsequently Sony. Released in 1973, this strongly personal reading provides a productive counterpoint to more established approaches. Unusual tempo choices, especially in the theme and Variation V, alter the first movement’s proportions and demonstrate how decisively performance can reshape the perception of form.

📚 Further Reading

A useful next step combines a broad study of the sonatas with work on performance practice and the more recent evaluation of K. 331’s sources.

John Irving — Mozart’s Piano Sonatas: Contexts, Sources, Style. Cambridge University Press, 1997. A study of the sonatas’ historical settings, sources and musical language. Its account of K. 331 should be read alongside research following the discoveries of 2014 and 2016.
William Kinderman — Mozart’s Piano Music. Oxford University Press, 2006. Places the sonatas within Mozart’s wider keyboard output and relates the details of piano writing to his development as a composer.
Eva and Paul Badura-Skoda — Interpreting Mozart: The Performance of His Piano Works. 2nd edition, Routledge, 2008. Addresses articulation, ornamentation, rhythm and dynamics, including the relationship between historical instruments and the modern piano.
Wolf-Dieter Seiffert — preface and extended critical commentary for K. 331, HN 1300. Revised edition, G. Henle Verlag, 2021. The most immediate next reading for anyone wishing to examine particular differences among the autograph, manuscript copies and first edition. The publisher makes the extended commentary available digitally.

🔗 Related Works

Further listening can follow the sonata’s original publication group, the theatrical use of the “Turkish” style or the later history of its opening theme.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart — Piano Sonata in C major, K. 330: the first of the three sonatas in Artaria’s publication. Comparing it with K. 331 reveals markedly different relationships between an opening fast movement, slower expression and the finale within the same published group.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart — Die Entführung aus dem Serail, K. 384: the opera supplies a theatrical and orchestral counterpart to the keyboard’s representation of “Turkish” music in the Alla turca.
Ludwig van Beethoven — Piano Sonata No. 12 in A-flat major, Op. 26: another sonata opening with theme and variations and reconsidering the customary movement sequence. The connection offers a formal comparison without requiring a claim of documented direct dependence.
Max Reger — Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Mozart, Op. 132: takes K. 331’s opening theme as the starting point for a large orchestral work. It allows the listener to follow a concise keyboard idea into a different period, harmonic language and scale of sound.
Franz Schubert — Piano Sonata in A major, D. 664: a rewarding comparison in melodic directness and the expressive use of related keys, within a later and differently organised keyboard narrative.

🎼 Closing Reflection

The best-known moment of a composition is not always the one that reveals the most about it. Before the sparkling Alla turca, K. 331 has offered a theme that changes character, a turn to the minor mode, delicate exchanges across the keyboard and the return of a dance. When the finale comes round again, we hear it within that wider experience. The melody we knew already is now surrounded by the rest of Mozart’s sonata.

📖 Bibliography and Sources

The analysis draws on direct examination of the digitised Neue Mozart-Ausgabe score. Questions of dating and transmission were checked against the revised Henle preface and critical commentary; the account of the manuscript’s discovery follows the National Széchényi Library’s documentation. Earlier statements in the NMA are considered in the light of subsequent source discoveries.

Score and critical documentation

Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus. Klaviersonaten, Band 2. Neue Mozart-Ausgabe, Series IX, Work Group 25, edited by Wolfgang Plath and Wolfgang Rehm. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1986, pp. 14–27. Digital edition: Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum, NMA Online. The three musical examples reproduce passages on pp. 14, 20 and 24.

Seiffert, Wolf-Dieter. Preface and Comments for Piano Sonata in A major, K. 331 (300i), HN 1300. Munich: G. Henle Verlag, revised edition 2021; extended digital critical commentary in the file dated November 2022.

Artaria, Vienna, 1784. Trois Sonates pour le Clavecin ou Pianoforte, K. 330–332, plate 47. K. 331 appears as Sonata II, pp. 15–24. The first edition is considered here through its description and source comparison in the HN 1300 critical commentary.

Manuscripts and historical documents

National Széchényi Library, Budapest. Autograph of K. 331, Ms. Mus. 15.289. Digital presentation Mozart, K. 331: Sonata in A major, edited by Balázs Mikusi, 2015: description, musical significance, identification and public presentation on 26 September 2014.

Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum, Salzburg, Bibliotheca Mozartiana. Autograph leaf of K. 331/300i, shelfmark KV 300i. Description and reconstruction of its place in the work in the HN 1300 critical commentary and Seiffert’s 2015 study.

Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus. Letter to Leopold Mozart, 12 June 1784, no. 797, in Mozart: Briefe und Aufzeichnungen, edited by Wilhelm A. Bauer and Otto Erich Deutsch, vol. III. Kassel, 1963. The relevant passage was checked through its quotation in the HN 1300 preface.

Studies of the musical text

Seiffert, Wolf-Dieter. Weitere neue Erkenntnisse zum Autograph der Klaviersonate A-dur KV 331. Henle Blog, 26 October 2015. Reconstruction of the manuscript leaves and interpretation of the repeat instructions in the surviving finale leaf.

Seiffert, Wolf-Dieter. Latest news about Mozart’s piano sonata in A major, K. 331. Henle Blog, 31 January 2022. Discussion of the Viennese manuscript copy, individual readings and its editorial assessment.

Répertoire International des Sources Musicales. Mozart autograph from Budapest now available online, 16 July 2015. Manuscript record: RISM ID 530011221.

Recording documentation

harmonia mundi. Kristian Bezuidenhout, Mozart: Keyboard Music, Vols. 5 & 6, HMU907529.30, 2014. Official catalogue and track listing.

Glenn Gould — official discography. Mozart Piano Sonatas, Vol. 4, 1973. On the interpretation of the first movement: Kevin Bazzana, extracts from Glenn Gould: The Performer in the Work, in GlennGould, vol. 4, no. 1, Spring 1998.

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