Mozart: Adagio in B minor, Piano Sonatas K 332, 333, & 457

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About Mozart: Adagio In B Minor, Piano Sonatas K

Amazon.com Alfred Brendel is revisiting favorite composers and works, and his latest account of these Mozart Sonatas and the great B minor Adagio is masterful. While not too different from his earlier recordings, they have greater incisiveness and power in the faster movements and more depth in the slow movements. A highlight is the B minor Adagio, one of Mozart's greatest keyboard works, in which Brendel's poetry is allied to profundity. The C minor Sonata, K. 457, is another masterpiece that Brendel invests with poise, yet he never downplays the turbulent emotions breaking through the classical frame. The earlier sonatas, too, have a lyric intensity and vibrancy that separate these performances from the crowd. Recent Brendel recordings and recitals indicate a new warmth and color in his playing, and the outstanding engineering captures that here. --Dan Davis Review Alfred Brendel seems to have attained a new level of serenity in his latest Mozart recital. At least, serenity is the right word for the easeful poise he brings to the F major and B flat Sonatas, wrongly ascribed to the late 1770s – as Alan Tyson showed, they probably date from the summer of 1783, when the Mozarts were visiting Salzburg. The delicacy, the tension too, with which Brendel meets the varying demands of these two sonatas is remarkable. One can sense that Mozart was, in his mind, preparing for the major orchestral works of the following Vienna season. When Brendel reaches the C minor work, serenity is no longer appropriate. Its amazing first movement is all fire and passion, ending in psychological (not physical) exhaustion. Brendel here favours the Allegro marking from Mozart's own Catalogue. Mitsuko Uchida, obeying the first edition's Molto allegro, dashes through the movement, missing its more reflective touches. Brendel, felicitously taking the Adagio marginally faster than do some pianists, is wonderfully poised, even when a dramatic touch supervenes. And the Allegro assai finale in this performance combines and contrasts simplicity with urgent power. The lone Adagio in B minor is the proper, indeed the inevitable, consummation of this recital. The sense of desolation is powerfully realized, which makes the final consolation of the major key the more moving. In this repertoire, Uchida is a shade more exciting, yet less poetic. Brendel gives us superb playing, enhanced by a recording of warmth and spaciousness in the clear acoustic of Glyndebourne (K457 alone dates from a later session, at Snape). There is a good introductory note – the only important information missing from the insert booklet is the identity of the piano(s). It's not too early to put this CD on your Christmas list – both for receiving and giving. Peter Branscombe --