Dedicated to Mozart Junior
POLLINI, Francesco.
Preludio cantabile e rondo per piano forte composti e dedicati al sigr W. A. Mozart, figlio … Opera 44.
Milan, Ferdinando Artaria, [1821].
Folio, pp. [2], 16, [2, blank], engraved throughout; title-page and final blank dusty, else a very good copy, in contemporary stiff paper covers, cover label (blank) with a woodcut border; with scattered contemporary corrections and additions in red pen (accidentals, slurs, etc.).
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Preludio cantabile e rondo per piano forte composti e dedicati al sigr W. A. Mozart, figlio … Opera 44.
First edition, rare, of a work for solo piano dedicated to Mozart’s youngest son Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart. Born to a Venetian family in Ljubljana, now Slovenia, Pollini (1762–1846) lived in Vienna from 1783 to 1790; he was the dedicatee of two pieces by Mozart and sang the role of Idamante in a private performance of Idomeneo in 1786. After 1790 he was based in Milan, where he was made an honorary member of the Milan Conservatory on its foundation, and composed the first Italian piano method in 1812. As a pianist and teacher he was admired by Bellini and Lizst, but he was also a professional chemist and used his family’s proprietary anti-syphilitic to cure Paganini in 1824.
‘In his compositions Pollini explores the dramatic and romantic possibilities of the piano, while maintaining a solidly constructed musical discourse. His piano writing calls for a complete mastery of touch, since the melody is normally combined with two accompanying parts’ (Grove online).
RISM PP 5070 I,31.
