Mozart: Violin Sonatas

COMPOSERS: Mozart
LABELS: DG
ALBUM TITLE: Mozart
WORKS: Violin Sonatas
PERFORMER: Anne-Sohie Mutter (violin), Lambert Orkis (piano)
CATALOGUE NO: 477 6318

The Mozart violin sonatas – the



culmination of Mutter’s ambitious



project encompassing his major



violin works – bring out both the



best and the worst of her artistry.



To get the worst over with first, her



account of the austerely beautiful



E minor Sonata, K304, is narcissistic



in the extreme: full of swooning nonvibrato



pianissimo, and so lachrymose



as to be stylistically suited to Puccini



more than Mozart.



There are traces of a similar



approach elsewhere in the cycle – the



over-plaintive account of the gently



pathetic G minor slow movement



from the Sonata K380, for instance;



or the tugging at the heart-strings



with heavy vibrato and rubato in the



soaring first episode in the Adagio of



the E flat Sonata, K481 – but they are



rare enough to make the wholesale



lapse of taste in that E minor Sonata



quite incomprehensible. Indeed,



besides the unmistakable mastery



of the violin playing itself, what’s



really impressive about Mutter’s



cycle is the variety of colour and



character she manages to inject into



the music. Even the last F major



Sonata, K547 – not one of the greatest



– is given a new lease of life by the



unpretentious poetry Mutter draws



from it. She is also a player who



knows how to accompany the piano



when necessary. Lambert Orkis is his



usual dependable self, if not quite as



intuitive a Mozartian as some who



have tackled this repertoire.



While there’s much to enjoy here,



then, either Barenboim and Perlman



or Lupu and Szymon Goldberg



(Decca) offer more even-handed



music-making. In the end, the



superior recorded sound of the earlier



DG set, and the security of Perlman’s



playing over Goldberg’s, just tip the



balance in its favour. Misha Donat