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Mozart: Piano Sonatas, Vol. 5

Peter Donohoe (piano)

Mozart: Piano Sonatas, Vol. 5
Donohoe is particularly attentive to this [operatic] side of Mozart’s expression, prioritising a cantabile tone, vivid articulation and songful phrasing. Although, realistically enough, he eschews...

Mozart: Piano Sonatas, Vol. 5

Peter Donohoe (piano)

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This release includes a digital booklet

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Donohoe is particularly attentive to this [operatic] side of Mozart’s expression, prioritising a cantabile tone, vivid articulation and songful phrasing. Although, realistically enough, he eschews...

About

"SOMM Recordings’ acclaimed survey of Mozart’s Piano Sonatas by Peter Donohoe nears its end with Volume 5 featuring three works from very different periods of the composer’s life. The earliest Sonata, No.3 in B-flat major, K281, from 1775, shows the 18-yearold composer in effervescent mood, nimbly drawing on French and Italian influences, with a cadenza composed by Donohoe for its Rondo finale. From January, 1788, the latest Sonata, No.15 in F major, K533/494, is an ingenious exercise in compromised creativity. Finding himself short of time, Mozart revised an earlier Rondo for the finale to two chromatically rich original movements caught between the Salzburg Serenades he was keen to leave behind and the aria-like coloratura he hoped would appeal to audiences. A decade earlier, the Sonata No.13 in B-flat major was composed in Paris as Mozart reeled from the death of his mother and the failure of his bid for success in the French capital. His only consolation had been an encounter with Johann Christian Bach, from whom Christopher Morley says in his authoritative booklet notes, he 'learned balance and dialogue (the characteristic answering to an assertive masculine opening statement by a yielding, delicate feminine response…) and these qualities inform K333'. SOMM’s Mozart Piano Sonatas survey has attracted superlative reviews. Volume 1 (SOMMCD 0191) received the accolades of MusicWeb International’s Recording of the Year and BBC Music Magazine’s Recording of the Month. Volume 2 (SOMMCD 0198) was also a MusicWeb International Recording of the Year, with Musical Opinion describing Peter Donohoe as 'an ideal interpreter', adding 'no finer accounts of these still neglected masterpieces will have been offered to the public'. Volume 3 (SOMMCD 0613) was hailed by ClassicalMusicDaily as 'a recording full of joy… the collection as a whole deserves to be celebrated', Volume 4 (SOMMCD 0629) praised by BBC Music Magazine as 'an insightful survey', adding 'Mozart would have approved'."

Contents and tracklist

I. Allegro
Track length7:56
II. Andante
Track length9:09
III. Rondo. Allegretto, K. 494
Track length6:21
I. Allegro
Track length6:23
II. Andante amoroso
Track length6:10
III. Allegro
Track length4:31
I. Allegro
Track length7:27
II. Andante cantabile
Track length7:52
III. Allegretto grazioso
Track length6:27

Awards and reviews

May 2022

Donohoe is particularly attentive to this [operatic] side of Mozart’s expression, prioritising a cantabile tone, vivid articulation and songful phrasing. Although, realistically enough, he eschews any temptation to pretend he is playing a fortepiano, he never lets the size of the tone overwhelm the sonatas’ intimacy.

September 2022

Potential takers who fancy a punt need not fear that Mozart and Donohoe are ever at loggerheads. The unforced brilliance of his playing falls very happily on the ear.
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