Mozart: Complete Clavier Works, Vol. 4 (2006)

German performer Siegbert Rampe has plunged deeply into the question of what instrument would have been used for the performance of Mozart's keyboard works in his own time in his ongoing series release of Mozart's complete keyboard works. Mozart's voluminous correspondence gives lots of hints as to when he encountered various keyboard instruments and how he used them. He probably heard the new fortepiano during his trip to Mannheim in 1777, and his sonatas of the late 1770s began to exploit its possibilities. Rampe bookends ... Read More

German performer Siegbert Rampe has plunged deeply into the question of what instrument would have been used for the performance of Mozart's keyboard works in his own time in his ongoing series release of Mozart's complete keyboard works. Mozart's voluminous correspondence gives lots of hints as to when he encountered various keyboard instruments and how he used them. He probably heard the new fortepiano during his trip to Mannheim in 1777, and his sonatas of the late 1770s began to exploit its possibilities. Rampe bookends this CD with piano sonatas that focus on focus on two different sounds not possible on a harpsichord. The Sonata in D major, K. 284, is a big work that evoked the spectacular symphonic sound of the Mannheim court orchestra, while the Sonata in B flat major, K. 333, characterized by Rampe in his notes as "idyllic," has a newly lush sound, with slurs and, in Rampe's performance, sustained tones that create a dreamy atmosphere -- it sounds odd, but Rampe is persuasive. In between are a... Read Less