Published in Music in Antiquity, Middle Ages & Renaissance

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The present work investigates in the second movement of Mozart's Sonata for Piano and Violin in A Major K305 (1778) – Tema con Variazioni – the compositional and expressive procedures employed by the composer. To this end, it reviews the literature on the Theme with Variations (Zamacois, Stein, Schoenberg and Scliar) concepts of Topic, Style, and Schemata (Ratner, Hatten, Sutcliffe, Day-O’Connell) proposing an analysis of the movement grounded on these concepts. The results are discussed in the light of the analysis and it is concluded that, even using the non-amplifying Variation or Fantasy model; preserving formal structures due to the Schemata repeatedly employed; and presenting themselves within the script described by Ratner (from his study of contemporary treatises), the diversity of styles and topics present ensure unity of the movement as expected of a part of a larger work without abstaining the contrast that is widely explored by the vast repertoire of composer of the constitutive elements of each style.