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

Editorial Reviews
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

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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,... read more

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

Tracks:

Piano Sonata In F Major: Allegro
Piano Sonata In F Major: Adagio
Piano Sonata In F Major: Allegro Assai
Piano Sonata In B-Flat Major: Allegro
Piano Sonata In B-Flat Major: Andante Cantabile
Piano Sonata In B-Flat Major: Allegretto Grazioso
Piano Sonata In C Minor: Molto Allegro
Piano Sonata In C Minor: Adagio
Piano Sonata In C Minor: Allegro Assai
Adagio In B Minor

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

Customer Reviews:

Excellent Brendel/Mozart.......2002-06-05

This Sonatas is superb played by Brendel and is so far on my list of "best Mozart discs from 2001-2002" :-) but this disc also give you lifelong enjoy and I hope your life be long so you can listen to this superb disc many times.

Highly recommended.

Mozart played the way it was intended.......2002-03-01

I have several discs of Mozart solo piano as performed by Alfred Brendel and many performed by others, but it is always Brendel that my ear craves to hear. Brendel is not affraid to play this music the way that the original composer meant for the music to be played. Mozart's intentions and the intentions of many of the composers of that time frame was for the written music to be a frame wrok for one to improvise upon. This is almost impossible to find. The current attitude of stunch unbending reproduction of the printed page can lead to head aches if iven enough time. this is where Brendel shines. He is not affraid to leave the printed page.

I highly recomend purchasing a copy of the pronted music to follow along wih any recordings of Mozart as performed by Brendel. You will be astounded by the subtle yet powerful improvisations that you will find littered throughout your listening experience.

You will not be dissapointed!!

Masterful Performance; Masterful Music.......2001-11-18

In this wonderful collection of four of Mozart's later piano works, Alfred Brendel brings us the pinnacle of the high Classic style. This is Brendel's musical home, the literature with which he has made his reputation and on which he is concentrating in this, his 70th year. This particular CD unites the sonatas in F major and Bb major, K. 332 and 333, with the sonata in C minor K. 457 and the Adagio in B minor, K. 540. Interestingly, although the Köchel catalogue of Mozart's works puts these two major key sonatas near the middle of his output, the CD notes tell us that they are more likely later works. Certainly a musical examination of the pieces show Mozart at his most sophisticated and imaginative. What elegant music this is! Every aspect of composition, from melody and accompaniment through harmony, rhythm, and texture are treated in a refined and graceful manner. My study of Mozart has led me to an ever-increasing appreciation for his vast talent, and even after teaching the sonatas for years I still find marvellous new details. Compare, for example, the opening of the first movement of K. 333 to the second movement of the same sonata. Listen for fragments of themes from the first movement reappearing transformed in this slow movement.

And although very refined, this music has a real sense of drama as well. In the opening of the F major sonata Mozart follows the reserved first theme with a sudden lurch into the relative minor and a complete contrast in dynamics, melody, harmony, rhythm and texture. The second theme, which begins with an extremely refined melody, contains an excursion into a musical world without melody, in which harmony, dynamic contrast and rhythm are the sole focus--modern listeners may find themselves momentarily reminded of a tango, although of course that would not have been Mozart's intention. The whole of the movement demonstrates compositional mastery of the highest sort, in which the listener's expectations are established then resolved in unexpected but completely appropriate ways. It's as if Mozart breaks the compositional "rules" in order to demonstrate the very purpose of those rules.