Mozart: Violin Sonata No. 23 in D major, K306

This CD marks the beginning of a new small side-line for CAvi of performances on period instruments. There will just be two or three titles per year. Giorgio Tabacco is harpsichord professor at Turin’s Giusseppe Verdi Conservatory. Francesco d’Orazio is a brilliant and versatile violinist who was awarded the Abbiati Prize XXIX of the Italian Music Critics in 2009.

Catherine Mackintosh and Geoffrey Govier formed Duo Amadè in order to perform the charming and intimate works of Mozart for this combination in concert, often with readings from his family letters. In 2006 Duo Amadè performed the whole cycle at the Royal College of Music.

The first set of Duo Sonatas was released in late 2008 and received a Gramophone Editor’s Choice in praise of its musicality and ‘historically informed performance’. Mackintosh in particular has long been recognised as one of the pioneering early music protagonists and is fulfilling the ambition of a lifetime with the complete cycle of Duo Sonatas.

Duo Amadè once again offers a charming and intimate performance, presenting the Opus 1 sonatas KV 296, 304, 305 and 306 written in 1778 when sonatas for the piano ‘accompanied’ by a violin were then all the rage.

Geoffrey Govier plays a fortepiano after Anton Walter made by Christopher Clare in Cluny while Catherine plays a violin dating from 1703 by Giovanni Grancino. These instruments bring a lightness and freshness of articulation to these delightful works, entirely in keeping with the spirit of enlightenment in which the sonatas were written.

Recorded in 1972