Customer Reviews

Mozart:The Complete Piano Sonatas and Variations

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

As an amateur pianist and Mozart lover, I own the complete piano sonatas by three different artists: Uchida, Maria Joao Pires, and Barenboim. I have listened to each set hundreds of times, and after buying Barenboim, side by side. For me, this interpretation is so far above the others (though much more so compared to Uchida than to Joao Pires), that I have only listened to Barenboim for the past year. One reviewer below points out that the 3 CDs of piano variations are not necessary, and I agree. However, the price is very reasonable, and I simply omitted the last 3 CDs when I loaded this into my iPOD.
You will treasure this performance each time you listen.

It is something near to a cleansing experience to listen through the Mozart piano repertoire as performed by Daniel Barenboim.

For starters, Mozart achieves his sparest, cleanest, most limpid lines when writing for solo piano. Then comes Daniel Barenboim, whose reading of Mozart is crisply and unemotionally classical. Not for him the drawn-out keyboard soliloquy. On the contrary, Barenboim gives us Mozart, only Mozart, and nothing but Mozart, clean and shimmering as sparkling mineral water.

This is not to say that Barenboim as pianist is unfeeling. On the contrary, the Fantasia in C Minor - to choose just one example with almost random lack of care - is quite moving. But not with a flourish. Rather, with almost sinewy restraint. The presentation represents a fine grasp of the master composer, nurtured with discipline across the length and breadth of the voluminous sonatas.

Indeed, the sheer volume of the Mozart piano sonatas is intimidating. It is astonishing to imagine one man having mastered it as Barenboim has. EMI Classics has done us the favor of collecting these two gentlemen's asynchronic collaboration in one set, affordable at that.

If Mozart is a musician for the ages and Barenboim a performer who left a formidable imprint on the twentieth century, their collaboration as represented in these recordings is a watershed that will need to be referenced by students of classical piano for at least another hundred years, or until people can only remember as far back as the Dixie Chicks.

Buy Barenboim on Mozart before that happens, and so stick your thumb in the dike against the evil day.

If this is not one of the great all time recordings of Mozart Piano Sonatas, I do not know what is! Bravo, Mr. Barenboim, Bravo and Bravo and Bravo.

Yes, sometimes the music seems almost to race, but the overall performance is heavenly, a formidable light touch!

I have never heard anything so compelling. The birds sing in my garden when I play it with the window open. I am sure it is played as Mozart intended.

8 CDs in this box, in modest cardboard envelopes, what treasure they contain! At less than fifty dollars, this is a great bargain.

On the Road is one of the greatest novels ever written and its manuscript is little short of an icon: Kerouac somehow or other stitched together one massive ream of paper that fed continuously into his typewriter and he was away. Akin to a Dead Sea Scroll, the manuscript can be viewed reverentially at a Massachusetts museum.

I suspect a similar methodology is in play here albeit without the white heat of inspiration: someone stitched together all the Mozart piano sonatas and variations into a piano roll and Barenboim sight-read them in a marathon session. Much like his DG remake of the Beethoven sonatas, not a single performance stands out to challenge the wider pantheon. The shallowness of the digital recording adds little allure to proceedings. Variations-wise, I actually scurried back to the Haebler survey - that's how perfunctory these performances are Mozart - Piano Works Complete.

This box is cheap. It is comprehensive. It is thoroughly B grade and that's being generous.

Uchida Mozart: The Piano Sonatas [Box Set] and Lubimov Mozart: Complete Piano Sonatas remain unchallenged.

I love classical music. I've learned to listen without being hyper-critical; just lsitening with my heart. Barenboim is a gifted muscian, and this performance is yet another example of Daniel's control of the keyboard. Endless hours of great musical listening.

Daniel Barenboim played this whole set with an interesting approach to WAM . The notations about classical , beethovenian style are always hazardous.
When you are a musician you must avoid in the cliche , and you should feel the music as a whole and the playing must be the consequence of a overlong process that begins in your soul , then your inner mood , your intellect and finally your fingers. I remark the aspect when you are in front of Mozart, Beethoven Wagner, Bruckner, Bach , Schubert and Bartok , because these composers are in a highest level than the others and the music itself is merely a device for expressing deeper issues.
That's why this set is superb. Barenboim plays a Mozart rich in expresiveness , he gives to Mozart presence .
Barenboim plays music as Vegh or Furtwangler did it , always seeking the landscape far beyond the score . That's why they are so original in their performances . The rapture is not a device for exhibite his skills , it''s the final product of a long process.
Acquire this set. It's an unvaluable treasure.

Barenboim playing Mozart has his critics, who say he's "too Beethovian" when performing Mozart's piano sonatas and piano concertos. I disagree; I love his style. Others might not.

My only complaint with this 8 CD set is that the advertised piano sonatas occupy the first 5 CDs; the last three are piano variations -- interesting, but not of the quality of the sonatas themselves. Surely a less-expensive 5-CD set, providing just the sonatas advertised in the title, would offer better value for money. On the other hand, 5 great CDs for $48 isn't a bad deal.

After listening and falling in love with recordings by Richter, I went back and re-listened to Barenboim's version...I couldn't recognize the piece. None of the phrasing and feeling. The beauty and feeling was completely stripped away, leaving only the notes...

You like Mozart? Who doesn't? Lots and lots of Mozart here. Buy this now!

This is a Christmas present so I haven't heard it but it is done by a Master so it should be appreciated.