Robert Estrin: The Mozart Secret Pianists Don't Know - From the Piano Expert

So first, I'm gonna play a little bit of the exposition, and notice the roundness of the phrasing in this Mozart sonata in C, K. 330.

[classical music] There's a kind of perfection, a jewel-like perfection to the music of Mozart.

Everything goes just where you want it to.

You, every note is placed so perfectly that if you changed any one note, it would sound off.

That's the perfection of Mozart.

Now, Beethoven is a little bit different.

Beethoven's personality is one of surprises.

So for example, one of the techniques he utilizes in his music is to set yourself up where something's building, and suddenly it gets soft, the subito piano technique.

And you'll hear it at the beginning of the Opus 14, number two G major sonata.

Listen to how he builds up and then suddenly down to nothing.

Pretty shocking.

[classical music] Something you wouldn't expect.

So whereas Mozart, there's that jewel-like perfection where every note is placed so perfectly it makes you go, "Ah," Beethoven makes you think he's going to do that, and just when you're lulled into the sense of c- uh, a sense of complacency, he shocks you, and keeps you on the edge of your seat wondering what's going to happen next.

Another facet, a fundamental difference between Mozart and Beethoven is how Beethoven developed the form.

Now, in his later sonatas, his development sections are massive.

Yet even in the earlier sonatas, they go much further than they do in a Mozart development section.

Once again, the development section comes after the exposition, which introduces the first two themes, and the whole exposition repeats.

Then comes the development section.

So listen to a beautiful development section in the same Mozart C major sonata.

[classical music]It's delightful when that recapitulation comes, isn't it? It feels like you're coming home after a long trip.

Very beautiful writing, how he takes those first two themes from the exposition and develops them.

But listen to how Beethoven takes the themes and goes further with his development section.

It's not necessarily longer in this case, which his later sonatas really did, but listen to how he really tears it up [laughs] in the development of the Opus 14, Number 2 G Major Sonata.

[playing Mozart] It's quite a bit of difference there.

Yes, there is more development in the Beethoven development section than in the Mozart development section, but it's more than that.