Mozart: Violin Sonata No. 30 in C major, K403

Catherine Mackintosh and Geoffrey Govier formed Duo Amadè in the 1980s, specifically to perform the charming and intimate works for keyboard and violin by Mozart in concert, often with readings from his family letters.

This is the fourth volume in the series of Mozart’s accompanied sonatas. The first volume was made an Editor’s Choice by Gramophone in recognition of its musicality and ‘historically informed performances’, while the second volume was made a Critic’s Choice in the same magazine. In this latest volume of duo sonatas, featuring KV 377, KV 379, KV 403, and KV 481, Duo Amadè once again offers performances of a similar spirit and style.

The violinist Catherine Mackintosh has long been recognised as a pioneering early music performer, and in recording the complete cycle of duo sonatas by Mozart she is fulfilling the ambition of a lifetime. Best known as the former leader of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, she plays with The Purcell Quartet, among others, and is a distinguished teacher.

Her partner in Duo Amadè is the fortepianist Geoffrey Govier, who over the last twenty years has worked with singers such as Gerald Finley, Charles Daniels, and Catherine Bott, the horn player Andrew Clark, and the chamber groups Ensemble Galant and The Revolutionary Drawing Room. He finds time for both editorial work and research into the development of the fortepiano.

Geoffrey Govier plays an instrument made by Christopher Clare in Cluny after Anton Walter, while Catherine Mackintosh plays a violin by Giovanni Grancino, dating from 1703. The 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.