Mozart

Mitsuko Uchida is one of the finest interpreters of Mozart's piano music. She brings to this music a lightness and delicacy that fits it perfectly. This 5 CD set, which groups recordings made in the 1980s, includes all of Mozart's piano sonatas and one fantasia. This is not all of Mozart's piano music; one may regret that Phillips did not decide to go a bit further and include the rest of his piano music in this set.

Mozart’s string quintets represent "some of his most sophisticated musical thinking … wonderful music, exhilarating to hear” (from the liner notes by Eric Bromberger). With this three album set, the Alexander String Quartet and Paul Yarbrough complete their Mozart compendium.

International sensation Federico Colli continues his personal exploration of the music of Mozart with this second volume of works for solo piano. Colli opens his programme with the Adagio in B minor, K. 540, from 1788, toward the end of Mozart’s short life. The only piece on the album not to involve variation form, this Adagio instead adopts sonata form, and is an extremely rare case in Mozart’s output of its chosen key. The two sets of variations that follow (from the seventeen sets that Mozart composed) use a similar approach in their method of constructing variations on the theme – ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’ in the first instance, and Gluck’s smash hit ‘Les Hommes pieusement’ (or ‘Unser dummer Pöbel meint’) in the second. Colli concludes his programme with the rather extraordinary Sonata in A major, K. 311. Instead of the expected sonata form, the first movement is a theme with (six) variations. Following the second movement (a minuet and trio), Mozart finishes with a rondo – arguably one of his most famous pieces, the ‘Alla turca’.

Mozart's The Impresario is the one-act singspiel about squabbling sopranos whose trifling nature leads audiences to assume it must be an early work. In fact, it's a mature score, written alongside The Marriage of Figaro.There is, alas, no evidence that Mozart put anything in the way of The Beneficent Dervish, and it shows in a score that offers not too much beyond period charm. But it's of interest as one of the musical pantomimes devised by Schikaneder just before The Magic Flute (another was The Philosopher's Stone, to which Mozart almost certainly did contribute). And dramatically, if not musically, it has so much in common with Flute that it almost qualifies as a preliminary sketch. This is the premiere recording, and it's neatly put together by Boston Baroque, one of the most respected ensembles of its kind in North America.