Badura Skoda

Behind every Mozart solo piano composition is the human voice, and many interpreters understandably build their interpretations from the melody line down. By contrast, fortepianist Andreas Staier generates rhythmic and dramatic momentum by letting his left hand lead, so to speak. His firm, sharply delineated bass lines in the C minor sonata's outer movements and the E-flat sonata's Allegro finale evoke a symphonic rather than operatic aura that proves far more stimulating than Paul Badura-Skoda's equally rigorous yet less vibrant fortepiano traversals.

Violinist by profession, the Japanese-born Viennese musician Tomoko Mayeda also learned to play the piano from the age of four. Her teacher and mentor Paul Badura-Skoda often took the time to teach her at the piano in addition to his support as a pianistic accompanist at countless concerts and a joint album recording. Mayeda had for a long time cherished the wish of being able to accompany herself at the piano, which she was finally able to realize during the pandemic through technical refinements: First, Mayeda recorded the piano part, to which the violin was then recorded in a second recording session. Since the otherwise usual and necessary agreements regarding musical features are omitted the result is Tomoko Mayeda "100%", an uncompromising interpretation of W. A. Mozart's late Viennese violin sonatas (B-flat major, K. 454; E-flat major, K. 481; A major, K. 526).

The Radio Legacy is a compilation of the seven part Anthology of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the four box sets devoted to the orchestra s chief conductors Willem Mengelberg, Eduard van Beinum, Bernard Haitink and Riccardo Chailly, and also featuring more recent recordings with Mariss Jansons.