This adagio is one of the few pieces that Mozart wrote which is a separate, individual work in just a single movement. It's a highly emotional piece and is clearly one of his best works in that "genre", together with the Rondo in A minor.
Mozart wrote plenty of Adagios, but this is one out of only two in B minor (the other one is the second movement of his flute quartet in D major, kv 285), so it's already a bit different than his other output.
The last, and to me most striking difference (and the thing that sets this piece apart from the rest) is how Mozart is treating the melodies.
Every composer has their own trademark, and for Mozart it's, without a doubt, melody and singing. Students are often asked to think his music as not symphonies or quartets (like most composers in the classical era), but Operas.
His melodies are usually very "organic" and has a certain "Mozartian" flow.
This piece doesn't really work like that. The piece begins with a broken chord in B minor, but unlike the sonata in b flat major (that also begins with an unaccompanied broken chord), it doesn't develop into something melodic, but just disappears. It's almost more theatre than music, and one could almost say that the piece is filled with gestures, rather than melodies.
Mozart is one of those composers I tend to visit as soon as my vacation starts, and this summer was no different.
It is still a piece in progress (and I had worked on it for a bit less than a week when this recording was made), so I'm looking forward to find my way around this rather weird piece.
Enjoy!
Pianist: Simon Danell