Mozart: Sonatas for Fortepiano
Three Mozart fortepiano sonatas from Geoffrey Lancaster, first-prize winner at Bruges and a forthright, well-researched voice who has long unsettled early-music orthodoxy in Australia.
His is a major talent, joined to formidable keyboard skills. This disc was the only Australian recording nominated for the 1993 ABC Record of the Year.
The programme is the Sonatas in B-flat major, KV570, F major, KV332, and B-flat major, KV333, played on a 1983 David Way fortepiano after Stein. The sessions were held in June 1992 at the School of Arts and Learning, Balmain.
Reviews
Geoffrey Lancaster's new disc of Mozart sonatas is going to get up a lot of people's noses, and so it should ... (his) playing of Mozart is about the most interesting (and without a doubt, the most exciting) on disc ... this new recording will send many listeners whimpering to the comfort blanket security of Uchida or Brendel. This is not listening for the faint-hearted ... his performances are an antidote to established attitudes to this music ... have a stiff brandy standing by.
He uses the fortepiano to reclaim the expressive qualities of the music.
Lancaster is bold, forthright, declamatory and endlessly fascinating in his approach. ... I have always maintained that Lancaster is torchbearer of a unique art form. Unique for at least three reasons: he is fearless in pursuit of ideals - nothing is half-hearted, he never allows authenticity to be equated with stuffiness and his playing has charisma and personality of the kind that enhances, rather than detracts from an enriching musical experience.
Lancaster fires an entertaining salvo at early music literalists.
Artists
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He wrote over 600 works, many of them pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic and choral music, and remains among the most enduringly popular of classical composers.
Geoffrey Lancaster
Geoffrey Lancaster plays Mozart and Haydn on the fortepiano with fearless freedom: improvised preludes, lavish ornament, tempo that breathes and darts. The playing reclaims the music's wit, drama and conversational intimacy.
Tracks
- i. Allegro 8:49
- ii. Adagio 8:42
- iii. Allegretto 3:41
- i. Allegro 8:59
- ii. Adagio 5:25
- iii. Allegro assai 9:56
- i. Allegro 10:30
- ii. Andante cantabile 10:21
- iii. Allegretto grazioso 6:56
Sonata in B-flat major, KV570 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Sonata in F major, KV332 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Sonata in B-flat major, KV333 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Performers
- Geoffrey Lancaster · fortepiano
Contributors
Typesetting and design
Belinda Webster
Belinda Webster is the founder of Tall Poppies Records and a leading Australian producer and recording engineer whose work has documented classical, contemporary and jazz performance across decades of catalogue releases.
Cover
Bill Leak
Bill Leak supplied cover art and illustrations across Tall Poppies chamber, piano and song discs, from an irreverent Mozart cartoon to quieter painted sleeves that sit beside Australian and classical programmes without drowning them out.
Fortepiano preparation
Carey Beebe
Fortepiano (1983, after Stein 1780)
David Way
Printing
Mockridge Bulmer
Where to listen
Mozart: Sonatas for Fortepiano is available as a CD. It can be purchased online through Buywell Music or the Australian Music Centre which both offer online ordering.
Product details
- Catalogue number
- TP022
- Total playing time
- 73 minutes 19 seconds
- Producer
- Belinda Webster
Geoffrey Lancaster - Recording Engineer
- Belinda Webster
- Editing Engineer
- Belinda Webster
- Venue
- School of Arts and Learning, Balmain
- Credit
- Belinda Webster
Bill Leak
Carey Beebe
David Way
Mockridge Bulmer - Release date
- 1993
- Label
- Tall Poppies
- Musical work
copyright - © 1993 Tall Poppies Records
- Sound recording
copyright - ℗ 1993 Tall Poppies Records
- Category
- Great Classics
- Genre
- Classical Era
- Barcode
- EAN 9399000002222
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