Mozart's sonatas have won a place in the affections of generations of musicians and music-lovers: indeed, one of Mozart's most famous pieces, the Rondo ‘Alla Turca’, is a movement of a sonata (K.331 in A major). Ever since the early nineteenth century, these sonatas have been a staple of the pianists repertoire. Their accessibility, combining agile passagework with a charming melodic gift, has made them favourites with players and listeners alike. They are still regularly performed, broadcast and recorded, on ‘period’ instruments now, as well as modern replacements. The ‘home pianist’, the examination candidate, the competition hopeful: all share a familiarity with this body of works. To the less experienced player they offer scope not only for practice in the shaping of a melodic phrase, but in the proper control of an accompaniment, and in acquiring the mental and physical stamina required to sustain, in performance, a musical argument over several pages. The sonatas are not ‘easy’ works, however. To the knowing professional, indeed, they pose difficulties of interpretation that few would claim to have solved to their complete satisfaction. To the listener, however, they seem, in a good performance, to possess an elegant simplicity of utterance, perfectly poised and yet possessing a certain detachment, a coolness of expression that sets them somewhat apart from the turbulent emotional upheavals of Beethoven's more famous thirty-two sonatas. Mozart's sonatas are without doubt less challenging technically than those of Beethoven. Pedagogically, they often serve, either in whole or in part, as a kind of ‘preparation’ for those more ‘advanced’ icons of emerging romanticism.

Mozart's sonatas are without doubt less challenging technically than those of Beethoven.