W. A. Mozart: The Piano Sonatas on Mozart’s Fortepiano

The first complete recording of W. A. Mozart’s piano sonatas on his own fortepiano, recorded by American pianist and Mozart scholar Robert Levin.

This comprehensive 7-CD box set also includes unfinished fragments by the Austrian composer, completed by Levin with attention to Mozart’s idiom and the compositional formalities of his time. Robert Levin’s interpretations of the piano sonatas are influenced by the performance practices of the Viennese Classical period and include improvised elements as well as ornamentation in the repetitions.

“One of the central questions confronting an interpreter of classical music of a specific period is the meaning of repetitions. In the strictest and most literal sense, of course, it means going back and playing what you just played before. But we know that ornamentation of repetition was an important element of performance in the 18th century. And when we look at Mozart’s sonatas, we can see that this element was of great importance to his way of conceiving music,” Levin explains.

The pianist traces the practice of using repeats back to Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach, who commented at length on the practice of repeats in the preface to his Sonatas with Altered Recapitulations (1759), stating at the time that “altering when repeating is indispensable today” and “one expects such from every performer.” C. P. E. Bach was a major influence on Mozart, and Levin treats his piano sonatas accordingly, not limiting himself to small ornaments in the treble, but making changes that affect the entire compositional structure. Thus the repetitions are embellished with great freedom, with altered details in melody, accompaniment, and, depending on the occasion, harmony, and even with brief interpolations (additional material inserted between musical phrases).

In addition to this historically informed approach to the sonatas, Levin also offers completions of sonata movements that Mozart never finished. Levin’s compositional vision for the fragments reveals the pianist’s profound knowledge and understanding of Mozart’s diction and the musical language of his era. Regarding the sonata movement in C major, K. 42 (35a), Levin notes, “The joyous movement in three-four time breaks off after 25 measures, thus providing main or side movements. It should be clear that the piece breaks off right at the beginning of a sequence that is to lead into the coda. The addition made attempts to continue the good humor or open character.

In the spirit of the greatest possible authenticity, the entirety of the sonatas is recorded on Mozart’s historical fortepiano, whose limited width of around 100 cm, combined with numerous other special features in its construction, produce an individual, woody, warm sound that brings out the characteristics of Mozart’s sonatas with particular transparency. The piano was built by Anton Gabriel Walter, presumably in 1782, and, as Mozart expert and Mozarteum director Ulrich Leisinger explains in the CD text, “is characterized by a silvery sound rich in overtones and – compared to the modern concert grand – by surprisingly clear bass notes.” Mozart used this particular fortepiano from 1785.

The recordings are complemented by a 100-page booklet that includes a treatise on the sonatas and on the instrument by Ulrich Leisinger, a performance note by Levin, manuscript scores, and more. The sonatas were recorded in the Great Hall of the Mozarteum Foundation Salzburg.