Mozart Sonata's - new set

This week we're back to music and looking at Sonata's.

What is a Sonata I hear you ask?

A Sonata a composition for an instrumental soloist, often with a piano accompaniment, typically in several movements with one or more in sonata form.

One composer who wrote an awful lot of them was Mozart, who if you're familiar with this blog (and it's bigger companion) you will know is a composer I've always had affinity with to the point of buying over twenty recordings in 1991, the two-hundredth anniversary of his death which included a few sonatas.

Music of this era is very much in the firing line of the battle between traditionalist and those who believe in 'historically informed performances' with replicas of older instruments and looking for clues to how originally they were performed.

The young lady on the left may be familiar to some blog readers as she's the acclaimed baroque violinist Rachel Podger who started a long running survey of Mozart's sonatas in 2004 with the pianist Gary Cooper.

This disc covers four, KV 6, KV 379, KV 547 and KV 378.

This was followed up with KV 303, KV 7, KV 301, KV 30 and KV 481 in 2005

In 2006 they recorded volume three that covered  KV 454, KV 28, KV 402, KV 404, KV 8 and KV 380.

 Volume four came out in 2007 which took in K 302, K 9,K 304, K 29 and K 526

At which point you are probably saying and what's with this "KV" number?
KV happens to be  an abbreviation in German for Köchel Verzeichnis. 

 It is indeed a register for all the compositions of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791), not only the symphonies. K stands for Köchel, the last name of Austrian publisher and collector Ludwig Alois Ferdinand Ritter von Knöchel (1800-1877).

All Mozart's  music is catalogued in order using this notation which makes things simpler.

These performances and others in the series I'm slowly picking up, are widely regarded as the finest modern ones and the smooth effortless reproduction  the super audio format allows for sounds most natural, as if you were in a room listening to a recital.

Personally I just love the playing.

Mozart

Mozart on cd for me started in 1991 with the DG Mozart Masterpieces  25 cd set that I bought an awful lot of during that era.

Those discs were mainly drawn for performances in the 1960's and 70's usually from mid 1980's cd transfers from analogue tape rather than the late 1990's and onwards remasters for "The Originals" or "Collectors Edition" box sets so I felt it was time to look at newer performances that would sound better in super audio cd to go alongside them.

 This does actual breach that rule being a 1972 recording  but it was exceptionally well recorded in quadrophonic sound being one of the finest ever performances with Alan Civil's horn playing standing out.

This was part of a series of recordings made by Linn Records, part of the Scottish Hifi manufacturer that use modern instruments but with a smaller scale orchestra than has been the case in the past to great effect, letting more light and shade in. 
Technically these best my mid 1970's accounts on DG.

This is a set of performances by the label BIS performed under Historically Informed  Performance criteria, which is HIP in some classical circles even if some traditionalists like me feel it's flawed as a concept. This account using an early 19th century piano while being a bit faster than I'm used to, do work quite well bring Concerto 27 that can sound plodding to light.

I bought this on recommendation in September as it has all of Mozart's violin concertos plus a few other works performed by that modern day gem of a violinist, Julia Fisher. 

Mozart's flute concertos always interested me as our Head Girl was a Flautist so one often heard them but the recordings I had didn't breathe as much as the best modern ones which was why I tracked down this 2005 release complete with catalogue as these are the finest available to date.

I have two groups of recordings of the main Symphonies, one set conducted by Karl Bohm  mainly in the 1960's and a mainly 1970's box set by Herbert von Karajan both of which were featured in the Mozart Masterpieces series.

These two double sacd sets while using modern instruments do use a smaller scale and some elements drawn from in vogue period performances and were very highly regarded upon issue in 2008 and 10 with the very finest of sound by Linn Records.

Mozart Quintets and Trios

Recently I bought this two cd set that had the contents of a four lp set on that originally had come out on cd in 1991 in a three cd form in a FatBoy case but because it's now possible to put a it more onto a single disc in effect they were able to pack two more Quintets into the two so reducing the price and by using the slim double case, the storage capacity.

For me these recordings from the late nineteen-sixties to the mid seventies have never been surpassed.

It also fits in well with my six cd box set of Mozart's Quartets also by the Amadeus Quartet too I bought.

Last year as part of the anniversary of his 250th death, the noted violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter recorded a number of violin based pieces for DG.

In that series I bought this recording of his Trios 4-6 with André Previn on Piano and Daniel Muller Schott on Cello which is very well played.