Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Performer: Peter Donohoe
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Somm
Catalogue: SOMMCD0660
Release: 2023
Size: 894 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
Piano Sonata No. 16 in C major, K545 ‘Facile’
01. I. Allegro
02. II. Andante
03. III. Rondo. Allegretto
Piano Sonata No. 4 in E flat major K282
04. I. Adagio
05. II. Menuetto
06. III. Allegro
07. Fantasia in C minor, K475
Piano Sonata No. 14 in C minor, K457
08. I Allegro
09. II. Adagio
10. III. Molto allegro
SOMM Recordings’ acclaimed survey of Mozart’s Piano Sonatas by Peter Donohoe reaches its end with Volume 6 featuring four works illustrating the composer’s endless fascination and creative invention with the piano. Mozart described the Piano Sonata No.16 (K.545) as ‘a little piano sonata for beginners’. It is so much more than that. As Christopher Morley says in his authoritative booklet notes: ‘Sounding deceptively simple… the opening movement even so probes the player’s technique with a searching spotlight with scales demanding clarity and fluidity, sequences shared between both hands requiring equality of balance, and an absolute steadiness of pulse’. The early Piano Sonata No.4 (K.282), says Morley, reveals the likely influence of CPE Bach, a ‘rococo/galant bridge between Baroque and Classical approaches’. This revealing six-volume survey concludes with the ‘awesome pairing’ of the improvisatory K.475 Fantasia and Piano Sonata No.14 (K.457), ‘the Fantasia, which encapsulates so much over so short a span… puts the pragmatic resourcefulness of the sonatas themselves into such telling perspective’.