W. A. Mozart's sonatas for solo clavier: Recent developments in chronology, transmission, and biographic context

Mozart's sonatas for solo clavier are among the earliest significant works in the piano literature, and yet they have received comparatively little scholarly attention. They comprise eighteen completed sonatas, four others presumably completed but long since lost, and seven fragments of sonata movements. Since the mid-nineteenth century, with the appearance of Kochel's first catalogue and the Jahn biography, there have been unresolved questions about the chronology of the sonatas and the reasons for their composition. Erroneous conclusions have been perpetuated from one generation of scholars to another. Mistakes in the identification of sonatas cited in the Mozart family correspondence have added to the confusion. This study proposes a new chronology for the solo clavier sonatas, based on handwriting analyses of Wolfgang Plath and paper studies of Alan Tyson, with refinements suggested by a close reading of the Mozart correspondence and other historical documents. It also proposes an historical context for each of the sonatas and suggests revised identifications for sonatas cited in the correspondence.