11. "Hèlas, j'ai perdu mon amant," with violin (360 K.).
In 1786:—
12. "Marche des Manages Samnites," by Grétry (352 K.).
In 1787:—
13. "Ah, vous dirais-je maman?" (265 K.).
In all these, even the more pretentious of them, there is no appearance of a higher object than passing amusement, secured by means of the contrast of the different variations in time and measure, major and minor, prominence of the right hand or the left, with all of which devices we are now so over-familiar. It never occurred to Mozart to give a deeper meaning to his variations by the grouping of the movements, nor still less to torture a simple theme into all sorts of fantastic forms. He confined himself to a tasteful embellishment of the subject; harmonic and contrapuntal treatment was not altogether absent, but it was little more than suggested as a sort of seasoning to the music. In many of the earlier variations mechanical difficulties are brought into the foreground. Certain favourite difficulties, such as the passing over of the hands, long shakes or chains of shakes in one hand, while the other has the subject, were always to be found; passages which now offer neither novelty nor difficulty display nevertheless, upon closer inspection, both elegance and originality. The equal use made of the two hands is worthy of remark; a considerable amount of execution in the left hand is presupposed in these as in most of Mozart's compositions. In the later variations (3, 5, 6, 17) there is little or no bravura. The theme is easily and gracefully treated; and no attempt is made to invest with undue dignity what is merely a light and passing expression of fancy. As one of the most interesting and successful compositions of this kind may be mentioned the four-handed variations (4), which are both graceful and amusing.
Sometimes variations form a component part (the middle or last movement) of a sonata, either with[ 15 ] or without accompaniment (284, 331, K.). This has caused no essential difference in their treatment; they are neither wider in conception nor freer in execution, nor are they connected by intermediate passages so as to form one whole—a device often and successfully employed by Haydn and Beethoven.
Mozart's original themes are, for the most part, fresher and more graceful than those he has borrowed. The accompanied sonatas give greater scope for originality by the multiplication of the parts; and very often the simple enunciation of the theme by one of the parts allows a better defined expression of free contrapuntal treatment to be given to it by the other parts. But, as we have said, these modifications are unimportant; the form of the variation is here, as elsewhere, simply light and entertaining.[ 16 ]
Various short pianoforte pieces, for particular occasions and persons, were written during Mozart's Vienna period, as, for instance, the three rondos:—