Mozart: Piano Sonata No. 18 in D major, K576 'Hunt'

The Portuguese pianist Maria João Pires has long been associated with the music of Mozart. Her delicacy of touch, vibrancy of phrasing and sense of fantasy mark her out as one of the elect who can touch his keyboard music without coarsening or simplifying it.

She has made two complete cycles of the sonatas; reissued here is the first one, from the days in the 1970s when she first appeared on the international scene and won over listeners with a graceful purity of approach that left more famous names trailing in her wake. The later cycle brought added refinement, but anyone who is captivated by this still undervalued corpus – too difficult for beginners, yet scorned by many professionals in search of gaudier glories – will want to hear this set.

Bart van Oort is one of today’s foremost fortepiano players. After winning the Mozart Fortepiano Competition in Bruges in 1986 he was instantly recognised as a master of his instrument, exploring the rich possibilities of the fortepiano, and using his immense historical and musicological knowledge for a better understanding of the Viennese classical style of Haydn and Mozart.

This set of complete piano sonatas of Mozart was part of van Oort’s 14-CD set of Mozart’s Complete Keyboard Works (94198/93025), a set which was praised in the press unanimously: “His Mozart, played with a fine sense of style and smooth technique reached an emotional depth… (Washington Post), “lively, sympathetic, light flowing touch, expression of feeling” (International Piano Choice).

Brilliance, fluency, clarity and extraordinary communicative powers – Mozart seems to have had them all. Little wonder he was hailed as the finest pianist of his generation – even rivals such as Clementi commented ‘I had never heard anyone play with so much spirit and grace…’ Of course we have no idea how Mozart the keyboard player sounded. We have the reviews and comments of those who heard him perform, and we have the instruments of his time.

These do take us some way to understanding performance practice of the day, and the limitations of the instruments, and how composers of the late 18th century worked to test the instruments, and make greater demands upon the constantly evolving fortepiano. On this first complete cycle using instruments of the period, Bart van Oort relishes the timbral possibilities of five carefully restored and copied instruments to convey Mozart’s music as directly as possible without the necessary “translation” when playing a modern grand.This results in a great clarity of sound and structure.

This set is this first in a new APR series featuring pupils of the great British piano teacher, Tobias Matthay.

TOBIAS MATTHAY (1858–1945) is the greatest piano teacher Britain has produced. From the 1890s to the 1930s, first at the RAM and then also at his own school, he almost singlehandedly produced a generation of concert pianists who launched an English piano tradition. York Bowen was an early pupil, but those best remembered are a group of female pianists; Harriet Cohen, Myra Hess, Irene Scharrer and Moura Lympany, all of whom will feature in this APR series.

EILEEN JOYCE lies somewhat outside this mainstream, as she trained principally in Germany, but she did have three years of finishing studies with Matthay between 1930 and 1933.

Eileen Joyce was born in Tasmania in 1908 to poor immigrants of Irish descent. Her father was an itinerant labourer and the family soon moved to Western Australia where the young Eileen discovered the piano and, in spite of much hardship, soon developed an astonishing playing ability. Heard by Grainger and Backhaus, who both praised her, she was sent off to Germany where she studied for three years with Robert Teichmüller. She came to England in 1930 with a recommendation which led to her Proms debut in that year playing Prokofiev's Third Concerto. She also commenced her advanced studies with Matthay.

After a slow start, her career blossomed exponentially from 1933 when she made her first recording. This disc, of Paul de Schlözer's Etude Op1/2 and Liszt's La Leggierezza is still regarded as one of the most astonishing examples of virtuosity ever recorded.

From this time until 1960, when she suddenly retired from performing at the age of 52, she was one of Britain's best loved pianists.

She appeared 37 times at the Proms, gave the British premieres of both Shostakovich concertos and became known to millions as the pianist playing Rachmaninov's Second Concerto in the film 'Brief Encounter'. Her greatest recordings are from the 78rpm period and we present all of these, with the exception of her concerto performances and a few later Decca discs. Eileen was a natural pianist with a big rich sound and very fast fingers; she is at her best in the many brilliant encore type pieces she recorded but she was equally stylish (and brilliant) in Mozart and had a special affinity with the wistful nostalgia of Grieg.

Most of these recordings have never been transferred to CD before so this set is a 'must' for all enthusiasts of great piano playing from the past.

South African-born, London resident Daniel-Ben Pienaar makes his Avie debut with an ambitious recording project: the complete Piano Sonatas by Mozart.

Pienaar is a completist. Recent surveys, both on the concert platform and in the recording studio, include Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, Chopin’s Complete Waltzes, Schubert’s Complete Sonatas, and the complete keyboard works by Orlando Gibbons. He arrives on Avie with another major project in tow: the complete Piano Sonatas by Mozart. An active recitalist and chamber musician, and professor at the Royal Academy of Music, Pienaar has a number of critically acclaimed independent releases under his belt, but this recording represents and uncommon synergy between artist, repertoire and production values. In Gramophone Award-winning producer Jonathan Freeman-Atwood, Pienaar found a special simpatico which he found “profoundly enabling”, resulting in a creative recording process specific in relation to the music in hand.

Pienaar presents the works chronologically over five CDs, illustrating Mozart’s compositional trajectory which represents all of the major stylistic and emotional shifts in his mature career, with the earliest dating from his twentieth year, through his Viennese period, and the final works which were written towards the end of his all too brief life.

Critical acclaim:

“Daniel-Ben Pienaar's performances are quite simply stunning. The instrument he plays matters much less than his musicianship, which is evident at every turn.” Gramophone

“A kaleidoscope of colours and textures in performances that combined the dramatic with the ethereal, the monumental with the intimate” International Piano

The return of an all time bestseller of Brilliant Classics, and international breakthrough of Klára Würtz as a near-ideal Mozart player. Received rave reviews from all over the world.

Klára Würtz was born in Budapest, Hungary, and started playing the piano at the age of five. She made has made over 20 CD recordings, including the complete piano sonatas of Mozart, a selection of Schubert sonatas and the piano works of Robert Schumann.

Her Mendelssohn recording with her Amsterdam Pianotrio was the Critics’ choice of 2000 (Harris Goldsmith for International Record Review).

Rare and unreleased material recorded 1939-1958.