<<<  <<  -- 3 --  Bill Newman    MAJESTIC PERFORMANCE

Stemming from the third movement of Mozart's Violin and Piano Sonata in F K547 comes his own arrangement for solo keyboard of Six Variations in F on an Allegretto, K54 (K547a). Again, and even more clearly in this work, the influence on Johannes Brahms (and Max Reger) is clearly in evidence. At ten minutes plus, following a flourish up and down the keyboard, the music goes into the minor key for a slowing up of pace. The right hand sustained trills in the variation that follows lead to a bass octave tremelo. A gradual speed increase in the next variation leads us on to the coda and we are left wondering just how many corridor innovations Mozart has led us through in the process.

Fantasie in C minor, K475/Sonata in C minor, K457 -- the best has been left until last: two separate works, often combined together in recital -- dating from 1784/5. The sequence in the Fantasie can roughly be described as foreboding, sweet feelings, dramatised tensions, which by this stage finds the initial tempo doubled. A new subject which caresses -- female, then male counterparts -- is examined higher up the stave. Suddenly the picture changes and consternation sets in, the motifs fall in a stepping stone sequence. Back in the C minor tonic key, the content is slightly altered -- female pleading above with the male suitor 'growling' his denials lower down. His two octave fierce upward swirls terminate further arguments.

Something resembling this remains to open proceedings at the start of the three-movement Sonata; now there is a more flowing cogency to the continuing discourse in the key changes of the Allegro molto. The Andante slow movement is pleading in utterance -- one imagines that the Fantasie dedicatee Therese von Trattnern is left to make one last attempt for consolation, but this is maybe my own wishful thinking! Mozart's vocabulary in choice of repertoire takes us into all sorts of hidden corners, but lingering sweetness lingers on to tempt us further. The allegro assai finale is stern and unforgiving with stammerings and stutterings pregnated by pauses and halts, interrupting the musical rhetoric. I love the coda where low bass notes spring into relief and high right hand figurations endeavour to sweep further arguments under the carpet! Needless to say, this was all revealed during Martino Tirimo's magestic performance.