I've been studying this piece for a while now, and have just listened to Mitsuko Uchida's performance of it. Verys strange as the way she finishes is different to my score!

She plays most of the aleghretto, but once she gets to the big chord after the last cadenza, goes back to and plays the initial opening section again.

Actually sounds quite good, but its not written at all like that in my version. Any body any explanation? Are there perhaps competing 'official' versions with nobody quite sure how Mozart ended it????

Mozart didn't end it :-) Or should I say Mozart ends it about ten bars earlier on a dominant seventh chord. I believe another composer wrote the last 10 bars, and some people prefer to play the opening section first instead.

I'm playing that piece too!!
Knowing Mozart, I think he might have ended it where he did just to be awkward/funny... though it seems a strange kind of piece to do that with.
Good piece though, isn't it?

It's a fantastic piece -, quite tricky in one or two places, but at least there's lots of rests so you can sort yourself out! Also sounds nice even if it is played a little bit too slow. In fact Uchida plays it really slow!

I actually think I prefer the ending going back to the introduction.

I used to play that piece quite alot, but i stopped playing it regularly for a while. I must get back to it sometime. I had no idea that there was a different version of the ending!

What's the KV. number?

K397 I think

Hi Does anyone know what sort of grade this piece would be, ive just learnt it and wondered if it could be used in my a level recital. THanx

Richard Jones, the editor of Mozart: Mature Piano Pieces had this to say about the Fantasia in d minor, K. 397/385g:

QUOTE

This piece is thought to have been composed in 1782 in Vienna.  It was apparently lefty unfinished, however, for the first edition breaks of after bar 97.  According to Paul Hirsch, who first brought this matter to light, the completion was probably the work of the Breikopf ediotr August Eberhard Müller, Thomascantor at Leipzig.

Think it's somewhere around grade 6-7.

it's in the grade 6 keyboard anthology book

I think its been a grade 6 piece in the AB exam and a grade 7 in Trinity.

It is a wonderful piece to play, although I found bits of it very difficult at first, but once you can play them they seem very easy!

I know you can say that about a lot of pieces, but this seems more so with this one.

I now play the first two sections right through, although a bit hesitantly in one or two places, and the cadenzas are not up to speed yet. I'm not sure how fast you should play them, they are marked 'Presto' but are in free time and I certainly can't ever see me playing them as fast as Uchida. The second one looks the most daunting, but I actually find it easier than the first. You can take the chromatic scale relatively slowly and it still sounds good as it blends back into the main theme.

The final section is coming along a lot quicker than I expected - it is definately easier than it looks. Has anyone seen Uchida's ending written out - I'd quite like to finish the piece that way, but it's not quite the same as the introduction.

I'm really looking forward to being able toplay it properly - not too far off now and I'm even thinking about my next major project. I'd love to play a Chopin Nocturne and really like the G minor (Its in the AB Board Book, Chopin, and introductory album)., has anyone any idea what grade this is (I think its been in AB grade 7), what it's like to learn any other thoughts.

trinity and AB often set things at different standards... however elegiac blues was on both gr. 7 syllabuses at the same time... must be THE definitive gr. 7 piece then