What made Mozart famous?
The same question that was troubling me at one time might be troubling you now. I once wrote a letter to a newsgroup, asking something like, “Why is Mozart better than Salieri? And why is Beethoven better than Dittersdorf? When I tune in late on the classical station, I find that I can’t tell Mozart FROM Salieri. And I can’t tell Beethoven FROM Dittersdorf. Do I revere Mozart and Beethoven just because everyone else does? I feel guilty for being hypocritical.” Someone wrote back that Mozart and Beethoven were innovative composers, and a composer’s innovativeness cannot always become evident in a single hearing. I have the score for Mozart’s piano sonatas, and I’ve read a couple of books analyzing the Mozart piano sonatas. So here are some cases in which Mozart stepped off the beaten path: –In the F major sonata, K 280, he wrote all the movements in sonata form, not just the first movement. Mendelssohn did the same thing in the Scotch Symphony. –In the D major sonata, K 311, he wrote
