In 1777, Mozart, aged eighteen and infuriated by the lack of consideration shown him in Salzburg, decided to try his luck elsewhere. He therefore took to the road like a mercenary to try and find a place with an employer or an advantageous commission, or failing that, opportunities to make a little money to cover expenses: organising concerts or giving lessons. Wolfgang had to earn money and if he failed in this it would mean ruin and dishonour for the whole family. These were the circumstances under which he discovered Schuster’s obscure sonatas, saw that they were popular and thought he would try to write something similar. It was finally in Paris that these sonatas were published in 1778, and dedicated to the Electoral Princess (Kurfürstin) Elisabeth Maria, wife of Charles Theodore, Count Palatine (Pfalz), hence the varying titles of “Pfalz Sonatas”, “Palatinate Sonatas” or “Kurfürstin Sonatas”.

These sonatas, engendered by a journey that was to prove in many respects initiatory, written between Mannheim and Paris, proudly bearing the inscription “Oeuvre Premier”, paint a picture of a fabulously talented young man who has left the family home and an environment he considers provincial and restrictive and who wants to shine and make a name for himself.