Six Variations in G minor K.360

Mairéad Hickey [violin], Nathalia Milstein [piano]

Wolfgang Mozart [1756-1791]

Six Variations in G minor K.360 on Hélas, j’ai perdu mon amant [1781]

This charming set of Variations was probably written for one of his aristocratic friends, Countess Marie Karoline Rumbeke, and his first Viennese student. They were very likely improvised at a performance at one of the salons he attended and written down afterwards. It was said that once he took to the keyboard he insisted on the utmost seriousness and the slightest restlessness or talk would result in him quitting the instrument, a bit like today’s performers who, quite rightly, leave the stage when a mobile phone rings. His first biographer wrote that on such occasions the almost always gently courteous man quite lost patience and expressed his annoyance without reserve.

Francis Humphrys