Mozart costume for Amadeus, Court Theatre, Christchurch. From personal photo collection.
From - www.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Mozart’s Sonata in C minor, K457 was composed in 1784 and it was published with the Fantasia in C minor, K475 as Opus 11 by the publisher Atari in Vienna in 1785. It was dedicated to Thérèse von Trattner who was one of Mozart’s pupils in Vienna. Her husband, Thomas von Trattner, was Mozart’s landlord in 1784 and the Trattners would become godparents to four of Mozart’s children.
It was written in the period of time when Mozart was a freelance composer and performer and it was most probably written either as a teaching piece or for Mozart’s personal use. Sonatas at this time were intended to be played in small settings so were more intimate in character.
Mozart wrote only two sonatas in a minor key and the choice of C minor for this Sonata is significant.
From Wikipedia -
Kochel said of this sonata, "Without question this is the most important of all Mozart's pianoforte sonatas. Surpassing all the others by reason of the fire and passion which, to its last note, breathe through it, it foreshadows the pianoforte sonata, as it was destined to become in the hands of Beethoven”.
John Gillespie, Professor of Music at the University of California, describes the Piano Sonata No. 14 as a uniquely "somber and passionate" work of Mozart's, and states that "no other music composed before Beethoven contains so many Beethovenian elements," namely the "contrast of themes and the sense of ceaseless struggle."
Mozart's sonata feels in several ways prophetic of Beethoven's Piano Sonata no. 8 in C minor, “Pathétique” (which it predates by roughly fifteen years), and both works share a similar overall structure. One of Mozart's themes in his spacious second movement is very similar to the theme of Beethoven's sonata's second movement.
The following is from the www.vanrecital.com/tag/wolfgang-amadeus-mozart -
“These two Mozart pieces, Fantasia in C minor, K475 and Piano Sonata no. 14 in C minor K457 are linked by the common key and a shared fondness for heightened musical drama. The Piano Sonata no. 14 in C minor K457 is a small one with big ideas; it is operatic in its wide range of emotions, it is orchestral in many of its effects and it employs unabashed quasi-virtuosic keyboard techniques”.