Mozart: Six Variations in G minor on 'Hélas, j'ai perdu mon amant', K360

According to legend, Mozart was so rushed when writing K379 and K454 that he was forced to première the pieces with incomplete piano parts. Paying homage to this spirit of spontaneity in a programme of some of Mozart's most beloved chamber works, Petra Müllejans and Kristian Bezuidenhout present a reading of these pieces that recaptures the freshness and volatility of those early performances.

These recordings dating from 1969 to 1973, were acclaimed by the critics at the time, and are still considered benchmark interpretations even in this age of period practice. Henryk Szeryng was born in 1918 in Warsaw, the son of a pianist mother and a wealthy industrialist father. By the age of 9 he had sufficient skill on the violin to play the Mendelssohn concerto for Huberman – a close friend of the family. Huberman recommended that the boy study with Flesch, which he did until he was 13. Flesch encouraged his pupils to establish their own musical personality upon their performances. In 1933, his big break came, performing the Beethoven concerto with Bruno Walter in Warsaw. Further study in Paris cemented his admiration for the French Violin School. ‘They don’t attack the violin, they don’t rape it, they treat it like a human being,’ he once remarked. He became friends with Enescu and Thibaud, and studied with Nadia Boulanger. His war years were spent in Mexico working for General Sikorski, and he succeeded in placing 4000 Polish refugees in the country.

Among his great recordings are the complete solo sonatas and partitas of Bach, the great concertos from Bach to Bartok and these recordings of the Mozart Sonatas with Ingrid Haebler. His playing is noble in style, almost aristocratic, and he adhered to the text – everything is scrupulously prepared and executed.

‘Its first movement has a tone of tenderness and elegance with a stylistic sophistication… when combined with a degree of technical brilliance, as they are. The movement is most expertly played here…Szeryng and Miss Haebler shape it exquisitely’ K378 Gramophone, May 1971

‘There is taste, humour and brilliance in these performances…a superlative record’ K301, 305, 376, 379 Gramophone, January 1975

It is particularly felicitous that Shumsky and Balsam, both very experienced chamber musicians, should have come together to record Mozart’s music for violin and piano. Their respective musical personalities, though very different, complemented each other, Shumsky’s bold lyricism illuminating Balsam’s stylish and fluent approach. Their playing is notable for its spontaneity, alertness and authority; note Shumsky’s deftly varied inflections when repeating the variations in the second movement of K377, the liberating sense of vitality in the first movement of K526 and both players’ sympathetic, clear-eyed approach to the Sonata in F, K547 and the two sets of variations. In all these works the interpreters’ mature artistry is completely at the service of the music.