Mozart: Piano Sonata No. 17 in B flat major, K570

For the great nineteenth-century pœt E. T. A. Hoffmann, Mozart was the first of the great Romantic composers — an opinion shared by most of his contemporaries, if not by most people today. Some of the Romantic ideals filter through the works presented here: the wilful simplicity of the B-flat major Sonata, which gives it particular poignancy, and the gloomier preoccupations of the C-minor Fantasy and Sonata. Canadian pianist Ludwig Sémerjian delves deep into these Mozart masterworks on Richard Wagner's own newly-restored Steinway piano of 1876, about which the Romantic composer declared: \0x2522No Steinway, no Parsifal.\0x2522 This recording was made in the grand hall of the Villa Wahnfried, Bayreuth, Germany, the piano's original home.

The selection of keyboard works recorded here all date from a transitional period, the last decades of the 18th century, when the harpsichord, the clavichord, and the fortepiano coexisted rather than rivalled with each other, as it has often been believed. The presence in Montreal of an original 1772 harpsichord built in London by Jacob and Abraham Kirckman—an instrument similar to models known by Mozart—prompted Quebec harpsichordist Catherine Perrin to choose a repertoire that would highlight its wonderful possibilities.

Richter's only released recordings ever of Mozart's sonata K.570 and of the Debussy etudes.