A Mozart bonanza

Abstract

One of the most recent contributions to Mozart literature is John Irving's book Understanding Mozart's piano sonatas (Aldershot, 2010), in which the keyboard sonatas are approached from various angles, including analysis, the study of autographs, the comparison of editions and the evaluation of sound recordings. The book centres on the closer proximity that existed in Mozart's time between composition and performance; Irving advocates recapturing this connection in modern approaches to the works. In fact, the study can be read as a direct challenge to a performing tradition that grew up around Mozart's solo keyboard works in the 19th century and survives to the present, in which the spheres of composition and performance are firmly separated. This tradition was founded on the ‘work concept’ as formulated by Lydia Goehr, whereby in about 1800 musical works began to achieve iconic status, enshrined in a text (Understanding Mozart's piano sonatas, p.7). Performance entailed fidelity to those texts, as embodied in ‘authentic’ editions; it imposed restraint in the handling of dynamics, pedalling and ornamentation, and propagated the all-encompassing legato that one's piano teachers always insisted on, fortified by the ‘editorial tendency’ to ‘smother’ Mozart's sonatas ‘beneath legato slurs’ (Understanding Mozart's piano sonatas, p. 68). According to Irving, perceiving Mozart's keyboard works in such a way that is unfettered by the strictures of the ‘work concept’ means above all reviving the art of embellishment. It also seems to mean performing Mozart's keyboard works on restored instruments or replicas connected with the late 18th century, thus reviving the issues of performance practice that informed Mozart's own approaches as both player and composer. Irving discusses two recordings amongst the group of twelve discs being reviewed here, Robert Levin's Mozart: Piano Sonatas K279, K280 & K281, vol.1 (Deutsche Harmonia Mundi 82876 84237 2, rec 2005, 55′) and Tom Beghin's Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Sonatas K331 (Alla Turca), K570, Fantasia K397, Adagio K540 (Et’cetera KTC 4015, rec 2005, 72′).