Melodies of the Mind: Mozart in 1778

Although much has been written about Mozart's relationship with his father Leopold, this paper focuses on his relationship with his mother, Anna Maria. While on a journey with Mozart to Paris in 1778, Anna Marie became ill and died on July 3. Mozart's Piano Sonata in A Minor, K. 310, composed that summer, is invoked to illustrate how his mental life is represented in his music. Conceptualizing music itself as a point of entry into affective processes, the paper suggests that the formal properties of Mozart's A Minor Piano Sonata open for the listener an aural road to the unconscious on which music and psychoanalysis inform one another.