The complete Mozart Sonata Festival
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We live in an age when it is difficult to hear a performance of a Mozart or even Beethoven concerto without some ornaments filling out certain passages as were the performing practice of the day and so I found it refreshing to hear Mozart’s bare outline etched with such purity and clarity by all the pianists. The ornamentation kept much to what is the bare outline in the score (I pricked up my ears only at the opening of K.310! which I must ask Amit about one day).This is not the place to make a detailed analysis of each performance all of which were to admire above all for the fact that there was no I Pad to be seen from eighteen pianists who had risen to the challenge with great professionality. Each pianist presenting their allotted sonata with such character and personality. From the impish good humour or Cristian Sandrin in the very first sonata or the simplicity and velvet sound of Sasha Grynyuk. Both Cristian and Sasha look and sound as though they belong to the piano or the piano belongs to them – there is a strange alchemy that makes for a perfect match indeed. There was the great rhythmic drive and characterisation of Edward Leung and the sublime beauty of the Adagio opening of K 282 in the hands of that born Mozartian Iyad Sughayer.
