Overview
Editorial notes from ABRSM Grade 8 List A.
Mozart's Sonata in A, K. 331 (1783) is the most popular of his solo piano sonatas, and the Alla Turca finale is one of the most-played movements in the entire repertoire — the Janissary-band imitation that captured eighteenth-century Vienna's appetite for the Ottoman exotic. The form is a rondo: the famous A-minor refrain returns three times, framed by contrasting episodes in A major and one striking episode that imitates Janissary bass-drum and cymbals in the left hand.
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Technically the piece tests three things at concert standard. First, the right hand's running A-minor refrain: every quaver must be even, articulated and characterful — not a blur of notes. Second, the A-major contrasting episode, which asks for cantabile voicing and a different colour from the refrain. Third, the famous coda with its left-hand Janissary imitation: marcato bass with right-hand turn ornaments, played with bright energy.
Two pitfalls. First, students push the tempo to fashionable speeds and the refrain becomes a blur. Allegretto is the marking, not presto. Second, the contrast between the minor refrain and the major episode is flattened — the sonata's character lives on that shift.
Listening: PD recordings of K. 331 are widely available on Musopen and IMSLP audio. Mitsuko Uchida (in copyright) is the canonical contemporary reference; Wanda Landowska's historical recordings (now PD) calibrate a more articulated reading.