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The article examines a group of closing gestures in Mozart's piano concertos, passages of soloistic virtuosity just before the last tuttis of the exposition and recapitulation. Serving as grand cadential clinchers and clothed in conventional figuration, these spots-sometimes called "display episodes"-appear to highlight performative prowess at the expense of compositional invention. As such, beyond an acknowledgment of the appropriateness of stock passagework at this point, analysis can have little to say: the episodes are either selfevidently simple or transparent to theoretical apparatus.I suggest, however, that by using the vantage point of variation, conceived broadly, not just as a technique but as a manner of organizing musical thoughts, new insights can emerge about these passages. This wider conception of variation is sanctioned both by historical precedent (Daube, Koch) and by contemporary usage (Sisman, Agawu); the specific invocation of it in connection with the display episodes is suggested initially by their characteristic bipartite format. Seen through the variation lens, elements such as contrapuntal ingenuity, complex modular arrangements within and between phrases, and an affinity for textural exploration come to the fore. These elements constitute a display of compositional virtuosity that is a counterpart to the more evident performative fireworks.

In recent years scholarly attention has become attuned to the notion of the ‘beautiful’ in Mozart: studies by Scott Burnham, Mary Hunter and Maynard Solomon have drawn attention to passages of sumptuous beauty, a hallmark of the composer's style. The present study amplifies this concern by focusing on a characteristic Mozartian gesture, noteworthy for being at once prosaically functional and conspicuously, richly (over‐)composed: a type of retransition procedure involving a contrapuntally braided linear descent over a dominant pedal. One of a family of ‘standing on the dominant’ techniques, the gesture is most distinctively found in slow movements, whose pacing allows the descent's tiny harmonic and contrapuntal jolts to resonate and be fully absorbed. In the context of Mozart scholarship, these underexplored sections are particularly sensitive, for they lie at the seam between art and craft: some of the most dazzling, memorable passages in Mozart, they are nonetheless grounded in everyday compositional procedures, markers of quotidian expertise. Using examples from the Piano Concertos in D (K. 451) and C (K. 503), the Piano Trio in B♭ (K. 502) and other works, this study elucidates the basic technical features of these passages. The aim is to place any more effusive discussions of Mozart's artistry on the firmest possible footing.

The brilliant style, described loosely by Leonard Ratner as rapid passages for virtuoso display, has been a mainstay of modern topic theory, often invoked in conjunction with the singing style to account for the basic contrastive mechanism of the classical style. This chapter explores some contextual bases for the topic, suggesting that eighteenth-century linguistic usage can offer useful nuance and proposing a topical home in the genre of the concerto. Illustrations relate to the concerto, aria, symphony, and quartet, and examine both keyboard and string virtuosity. At the heart of the brilliant style is a set of propensities for public and theatrical modes, tied to a sense of occasion; it can highlight tensions between composer and performer, and relates directly to our constructions of the active “persona” in a composition or performance.

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