Mozart: Piano Sonatas & Fantasias, Lars Vogt, piano

Lars Vogt’s playing will be familiar to many Edinburgh Festival-goers. The delicacy that he brought to the Queen’s Hall last year is present once again in his new recording of Mozart sonatas and fantasias. The lightness of Vogt’s playing is demonstrated from the very start of the opening of the first sonata, K330. The sonatas on this disc (No.10, 11 & 12) share similarities in technique and style but despite this, Vogt also manages to create a sense of contrast throughout his playing. His performance of Sonata No.12, K332 captures all of the moods depicted by the movements. In particular, the Adagio sandwiched between such energetic movements feels like a breath of fresh air. The start of the Allegro Assai, whilst light and airy, yet manages to display a feeling of intensity.

The second disc is made up of a selection of fantasias and rondos, as well as the Nine Variations on a Minuet by Duport, K.573 and Adagio in B minor, K.540. In the C minor Fantasia, K.475, a work far away from the twinkliness found in the previous sonatas, Vogt presents us with a very different style of Mozart. There is an almost gritty feeling all the way through, though all the while managing to avoid becoming overly heavy.

In the accompanying sleeve-notes, Vogt discusses his views on historical performance practice, opting to be informed by such rather than be completely ruled by the practices. It is from this thinking that he feels able to justify playing on a modern Steinway rather than a fortepiano. He refers to his solution as “historically informed”, saying “…one knows about the advantages and fundamentals of historical performance practice and makes uses of their positive aspects, but without suppressing one’s own intuition or suspending the search for colour and expression”. He concludes with the statement “…the immense content of these masterpieces imposes its own conditions and calls for an awareness of more than just style and history”. Vogt can feel reassured that he has indeed managed to achieve this.