Bart Van Oort - Mozart: Complete Piano Sonatas (2012)

These recordings are the result of Bart van Oort researches in historical informed performance, with profound individuality. His playing is very different to others. I know and appreciate Gieseking's, Eschenbach's, Haebler's, Uchida's, Pires's, Wutz's, Brendel's, Klien's, Brautigam's and Lubimov's rendering of these sonatas. Nevertheless Van Oort originality makes it an astonishing different interpretation, it clearly separates from all others, even from other HIP like Lubimov and Brautigam, to give a a performance of high energy in places were we are used to much more a cantabile expression; his articulation is of extreme clarity; an interpretation with many layers, in volume, subtle or energetic, depending on the part of the piece. Never a plain interpretation, as many others. He plays more with tempo than what's common. His playing matches extremely well the sound of his fortepianos, instruments of short sound, not cantabile, like later fortepianos and modern pianos. In a time like the one we live in, with so many recordings, finding such a different one, which gives you a punch of freshness is not only desirable but needed. I also highly recommend his previous cd: Mozart's Sonatas, Fantasies & Variations, perhaps even more extreme, with the instrument set in a different temperament. In synthesis, this is by far the complete Mozart sonatas set that I prefer to any other I know.