Orli Shaham - Mozart: Piano Sonatas Vol 2 & 3 [CD]

This is the second installment in Orli Shaham's complete Mozart sonatas cycle and follows her recording of the Mozart Violin Sonatas with brother, violinist Gil Shaham, and her acclaimed release of Mozart Piano Concertos, conducted by David Robertson and the St. Louis Symphony. Mozart's singing line and it's translation to the piano has served as Orli Shaham's constant guide in her interpretations of Mozart. The artistic genius in Mozart is that he leaves the performer to capture the mood in the music, and this Orli Shaham does with aplomb, the studio environment for this recording encouraging her to experiment with ornamentation, adding or subtracting trills and grace notes with successive takes. Recording in her favorite recording venue, Mechanics Hall, she fully explores the pathos and cultivates the humor in Mozart's B-flat sonatas. In her own words, "he had such insight into what it means to be human and had to get that out in his music. Mozart was superhuman in what he was able to do... but that never comes across in music that is so human. Mozart's three B-flat sonatas are so varied and different in their inventive brilliance. Each has a truly individual and distinct voice, yet together they stand on a timeline that clearly maps Mozart's development from his late teens to full maturity."