Mi-Sa Yang and Jonas Vitaud have hopped over Mozart’s childhood piano
and violin sonatas and gone straight for the gold in this four-strong
programme: a pair each from the 1778 (K304 and 306) and 1781 (K379 and
380) sets, published respectively in Paris and Vienna just before and
just after his final resignation from Archbishop Colloredo’s
straitjacketing court life.
The first thing to hit your ears in the opening K379 is the
delectable combination of timbres from Yang and Vitaud’s modern
instruments. Softly sparkling, delicately jewel-like from Vitaud,
drawing all the plus points and none of the negatives of employing a
modern concert grand in this repertoire. Then Yang sounding darkly
stringy and lean, vibrato used sparingly.
Indeed, ‘less is more’ is the order of the day here.
Beautifully so too, although for some it might be a little too … little.
Take the variations of K379 where, by and large, their approach to the
repeats is simply to add ornamentation (and Yang’s ornaments in the
first half of Var 3 are really delectable). Then compare it to the
subtle colouristic and articulational contrasts of Petra Müllejans and
Kristian Bezuidenhout (Harmonia Mundi, 6/09), or the even more
pronounced shifts – portamentos even – to be heard from Itzhak Perlman
and Daniel Barenboim (DG). Likewise compare the gentle shift of mood in
Isabelle Faust and Alexander Melnikov’s K304 Allegro first-half repeat (Harmonia Mundi, 11/18) to the pretty much verbatim one of Yang and Vitaud.
This particular sonata indeed breathes into being slightly too
serenely for my ears, in the context of its being written over the
fateful Paris trip that saw the death of Mozart’s mother. Still, from
Vitaud’s bar 69 second-movement rubatoed upwards climb it does feel as
though we’re in new, deeper emotional territory, with an extra degree of
fragility and feeling from Yang; and from here the meticulously
thought-through rubatos, tempo changes and fluctuations in urgency had
me in their thrall. There’s also no arguing with the slender-toned
lyricism and subtle sense of drama and fun (deliciously weighted pauses)
they bring to K306’s operatic finale. Other draws are Yang’s
barely-there pianissimos throughout; the multicoloured
architecture and coy rubato employed by Vitaud in his K379 Var 5 solo
(where incidentally there is a dynamic shift with the repeat, Yang
bringing the volume of her already-whispered pizzicato down even
further); and overall the sympathetic sense of conversation between the
two of them.
Will this become one of my go-to Mozart sonata recordings? Honestly,
probably not when there’s such stiff existing competition. However, it’s
nicely done, and certainly worth checking out if you’re after a
non-period-instrument recording which yet sounds elegantly on the cusp
of it. (Charlotte Gardner / Gramophone)
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