Favourite Mozart performer?

[Bouter Boogie]

Who's your favourite Mozart perfomer?

As for me, I'd go for Géza Anda, although Mitsuko Uchida's also quite good with Mozart.

[janne p.]

Victor Borge 

[Motrax]

I don't know too many recordings, but I have the complete set of sonatas/fantasias/variations by Alicia De Laroccha and it's wonderful. She plays well enough that I've had no inclination to find and listen to other recordings.

[mikey6]

Who's your favourite Mozart perfomer?

As for me, I'd go for Géza Anda, although Mitsuko Uchida's also quite good with Mozart.

I have most of Anda's Mozart concerto's and I rather like them.  However I was reading in gramophone that his 21st "hardly shows him at his peak" (or something like that).  His shaping of the slow movement is gorgeous from what I remember (haven't heard them for a while).
But yeh, i'd go for Uchida or Brendel.

[vladhorwz]

1) Gulda
2) Argerich

[arensky]

Four come immediately to mind;

Alicia de Larrocha
Clara Haskill
Mitsuko Uchida
Robert Casadesus

In no particular order, I probably enjoy de Larrocha the most.

[musicsdarkangel]

I HATE Uchida's interpretations.


I would say Alicia De La Roccha's and Maria Joao Pirez's

[pianistimo]

i like murray perahia's. 

[xvimbi]

I judge Mozart interpreters by listening to them play his sonatas. Admittedly, I have only recently begun to delve into them, but I find Uchida great, as well as Brendel, as different as they are. With Mozart sonatas, one can very quickly distinguish between top-notch pianists and second-tier ones. Jeno Jano and Idil Biret, for example, are distinctly "worse" than Uchida and Brendel. With Mozart, it's just all out there. The slightest inaccuracy comes screaming at you, and it shows more often with those two latter pianists. That's why I find Mozart among the most difficult music in general. De Larrocha isn't too bad either, but why does she play appogiaturas before the beat where everybody else is playing them on the beat? Granted, I haven't gone through all sonatas to check carefully. A pianist of that caliber must make this a conscious decision, I wonder why. With Brendel, you get the feeling that he pondered about every note, every nuance, every little bit until it's exactly how he wants it.

[pianistimo]

that's the way perahia plays, imo.

[vladhorwz]

. Jeno Jano and Idil Biret, for example, are distinctly "worse" than Uchida and Brendel. With Mozart, it's just all out there.

I agree, for Idil Biret's credentials, her recordings are painful to listen to.  Did Cortot really find her to be his top pupil?  c'moooon!!!!!  I don't know why I have so many of her recordings, maybe because they were cheap.  Maybe there is a reason for that.  Jando is not so bad but nothing spectacular.  How do these guys get contracts to record so much?  Maybe this is a topic for a different thread, but why have they recorded so much mediocre....at best music, do they do it cheap?

[Souza]

Who's your favourite Mozart perfomer?

Clara Haskil.

{}s Pedro

[arensky]

i like murray perahia's.

                                       Oops, I forgot about him; how? 

De Larrocha isn't too bad either, but why does she play appogiaturas before the beat where everybody else is playing them on the beat? Granted, I haven't gone through all sonatas to check carefully. A pianist of that caliber must make this a conscious decision, I wonder why.

Sometimes she does, sometimes she doesn't; she's an artist who does what she feels, and plays the appogiaturas the way she thinks they sound better, no matter what scholarship dictates. She is not an intellectual performer, she follows her heart. Also, she was trained in the pre WW2 school of Mozart playing, which didn't understand or even care about the harmonic /melodic reasons for the ornaments to be in their proper place. By the way,she also frequently trills starting on the principal note, not the note above, but sometimes the trills are correct; sometimes her appogiaturas ARE before the beat! I think she is aware of correct ornamentation, but she just does what she feels like, and does not care about the likes of you and I quibbling about these things in her records! Good for her!  I respect what you're saying, ornaments should be executed the way C.P.E. Bach and Turk instruct us to,but this is an artist I love so much that I had to stick up for her. Ornamentation aside, what do you think of her Mozart, the diamond scales and the coloratura-like phrasing, the pathos, the love of life? Oh God, the adjectives, time to stop....

Sorry, with this artist it's not a logical issue with me....

[Waldszenen]

Perahia and Jeno Jando.

[galonia]

Maria Joao Pirez - I love her energy!

[xvimbi]

Sometimes she does, sometimes she doesn't; she's an artist who does what she feels, and plays the appogiaturas the way she thinks they sound better, no matter what scholarship dictates. She is not an intellectual performer, she follows her heart. Also, she was trained in the pre WW2 school of Mozart playing, which didn't understand or even care about the harmonic /melodic reasons for the ornaments to be in their proper place. By the way,she also frequently trills starting on the principal note, not the note above, but sometimes the trills are correct; sometimes her appogiaturas ARE before the beat! I think she is aware of correct ornamentation, but she just does what she feels like, and does not care about the likes of you and I quibbling about these things in her records! Good for her!  I respect what you're saying, ornaments should be executed the way C.P.E. Bach and Turk instruct us to,but this is an artist I love so much that I had to stick up for her. Ornamentation aside, what do you think of her Mozart, the diamond scales and the coloratura-like phrasing, the pathos, the love of life? Oh God, the adjectives, time to stop....

Sorry, with this artist it's not a logical issue with me....

I completely agree with what you said. I am myself very forgiving and in fact outright encouraging when it comes to breaking the "norm", particularly when "norm" means nothing else than stubborness or a rule that someone came up with at some point without any cogent reasons. However, there is a fine balance between breaking the "rules" and being faithful to the composer. As strange as it may sound, I am much more willing to see almost any rule being broken in Bach (quite violently, sometimes), but not so much in Mozart. But even for Mozart, I agree that often enough, trills sound just as fine starting with either the principal or the auxiliary note, so indeed one should explore both ways.

I didn't mean to degrade de Larrocha's style, in fact I love it very much myself, but it still made me wonder. I think, if it wasn't for those "little things", I would give her 11 stars out of 10! So, she gets only 10.5 from me