Ron Ackermann queries:

>>I have been in the market for a complete set of the Mozart piano sonatas
>>for quite some time.  Can the list's piano experts comment on this
>>set,Kraus' Sony set (currently available at Berkshire for $19.95) and
>>anyother sets that are currently available and recommended?

Joseph Previte replied:

>Lili Kraus' sets are the finest available versions I have heard.  I
>marginally prefer the spontinaity and joy of her M & A version, but could
>easily be as content with the Sony (I have both).  The other complete
>version I enjoy is the austere classicism of Klein on Vox.  I dislike Pires
>and Eschenbach, and go into intractable seizures when I hear Gould (not
>belying the intellectual interest it provides.) Uchida falls somewhere
>inbetween mediocrity and greatness, but I find her a bit to cool and
>detached.

Based upon this and some other posts, I decided to spring for the slightly
higher priced M & A set, reasoning that it might be a bigger contrast to
the Uchida recordings, which I already had.  I am listening to the Kraus
recordings now and am finding them delightfully sparkling.  By "sparkling"
I don't intend to imply lack of profundity but lack of varnish.  This is
pure Mozart made to sound so easy and so right.

I haven't listened to my Uchida recordings in a while.  My recollection is
that I liked her performances as much as I am liking these.  But they are
different.  Somebody described her performances as "romantic" apparently in
a non laudatory sense.  Well, it's true that Uchida was the first pianist
who got me to listen to Schumann's "Carnival" and not only not yawning, but
actually liking it.  And hers was the Schoenberg piano music that I first
listened to without feeling totally puzzled.  Maybe in one sense that makes
her take on works, including Mozart's "romantic" in a sense that need not
be derogatory, as perhaps there is something "romantic" lurking in much of
Mozart, especially in his slow movements.

If so, Uchida, may have made Mozart's romantic aspect more her own and
now chooses to bring it to the forefront of her interpretations.  Kraus,
perhaps, prefers to let the listener hear on his or her own the influences,
whether romantic or something else, in the pieces she plays.

I always feel presumptuous when I attempt to compare or judge rival
performances by recognized artists, all though I feel fewer inhibitions
passing judgment on compositions.  (I neither play nor compose and can't
account for the difference in attitude.) So, if what I've said betrays a
lack of understanding, my apologies.  For what their worth, these were
impressions of music I love played by two performers I admire, to only
one of whom I've just been listening.

Walter Meyer