This beautifully-bound book – with 84-page notes – has to be first of some sort. It follows in the tradition of some previous efforts – the all-there-is-by-everybody collections pioneered by the Vox LP label, the squeezing more into one medium, such as the 16 rpm LPs or the couple of CD sets that put different mono programs on each of the stereo channels in order to cram twice as much music on each disc. But in this case there is no serious degradation sonically – though hi-res purists might have wished the audio format was 96K or at least 48K rather than the same as standard 44/16 CDs, but there probably wasn’t room on the two DVDs for that. The discs are not region encoded and will play on any DVD player – a DVD-Audio player is not required, but they will not play on a CD-only player.
Let’s dispense with the two video interviews first. They are 4:3 screen with English subtitles (although preceded by a long scrolling of text in German which might lead one to believe there are no English subtitles). Pianist Piazzini, who hails from Buenos Aires, emigrated to Italy partly because her grandfather has been a close friend of Puccini’s. While she is also a performer and supporter of modern music, she conveys in her two interviews a strong love and involvement in Mozart’s genius at both his concertos and sonatas. She sits at the keyboard for most of them and demonstrates passages she is telling us about. They are the sort of background material that is fascinating to view once but you would probably not return to again.
However, the big attraction here is to have the complete Mozart concertos and piano sonatas all in one package on only two discs! I don’t know what the set retails for, but it has to be a terrific bargain regardless – 16 1/2 hours of music, mind you! All of the concertos are on the first DVD and all the sonatas on the second DVD. In the middle of the concertos Mozart’s two Concert Rondos (Nos. 1 & 2) are also included. Piazzini has a sensitive touch and expressive delivery which convinced me that even those early sonatas and the couple of concertos that I think sound better on the harpsichord work exceedingly well on the modern piano when interpreted by a master keyboardist. I found the very early sonatas most listenable, even those I had previously discounted as rather boring and childlike. The Russian players are excellent and the chamber orchestra and piano balances are just right. I didn’t do any comparisons with recordings of some of the works by well-known pianists; I’m sure there is plenty of competition here and there. But there are few sets of all the concertos or all the sonatas by one performer, and none combining the two on just two discs such as this compendium. This may be an unknown label in the U.S., but I feel this fine collection will have great appeal to many collectors and music lovers.
– John Sunier
