Originally posted on June 4
There are sixteen Sonatas for Piano and Violin, Mozart putting the piano first in titular terms (as Beethoven would do for his Sonatas for violin and those for cello). Plenty of variety in these works, and also, as you’d expect, in the two sets of Variations embraced here. The Sonatas exude charm, poignancy (K304’s Minuet), vitality, songlike serenity and more-searching expression, and enjoy the classical yet charismatic readings by Kit Armstrong & Renaud Capuçon, themselves sporting an easy rapport that yields perceptive and engaging music-making, beautifully finished without attention-seeking or point-making, considered yet spontaneous, never bland, and lucidly recorded in good balance last October in Teldex Studio Berlin. DG 486 4463 (4 CDs) is released on June 23.