Rachel Podger & Gary Cooper - Mozart: Complete Sonatas for keyboard & violin, Vol. 2 (2005) [SACD]

Rachel & I feel that, by using a fortepiano throughout, we present a sort of musical ‘level playing field’ with regard to our choice of Mozart’s sonatas included on this disc – spanning as it does such a huge portion of the composer’s life & musical development. While K.6 may at first appear to the listener as amiable juvenilia, sitting as it does alongside a sonata of such undoubted breadth & maturity as K.481, we firmly believe that allowing Mozart’s early – and outstanding – ventures into this genre to speak for themselves by using using the same instruments throughout, we hope to draw attention to his early work in the best way – in a way that is not only so suggestive of what would in time follow, but also seeks to demonstrate the eight year old’s already fecund imagination and uncanny sense of musical line. Gary Cooper