Maria João Pires - Mozart: The Piano Sonatas (6CD Collectors Edition) (2006)

Recorded collections of the complete Mozart piano sonatas are legion among pianists; there are 18 sonatas, and most packages likewise include the Fantaisie in C minor, K. 475, and an isolated movement or two thrown in for good measure. Just considering better known names that have traversed this literature in boxed set form at one time or another, and in some cases twice, one will find names such as Paul Badura-Skoda, Daniel Barenboim, Malcolm Bilson, Alfred Brendel, Karl Engel, Christoph Eschenbach, Lili Kraus, Mitsuko Uchida, András Schiff, Alicia de Larrocha, Glenn Gould, and Ronald Brautigam. Brautigam's recording is a little different in that it is played on a fortepiano rather than a modern one; Gould's is both the most famous and the most deliberately willful and perverse -- it is also one of the most expensive.
The major problem with these sets, outside of their profligacy and the difficulty as to which one to choose, is that they don't sell very well. Unlike boxed sets of Mozart's piano concertos or symphonies, there are not as many sure-fire hits to be found among the solo sonatas, the "Sonata facile" in C, K. 545, and the Sonata in A, K. 331, with the Rondo alla Turca are the only Mozart sonatas that are generally known to the public at large. It makes sense to investigate them, as they are among the most personal and direct works he created. They are quite unlike other keyboard sonata cycles from other eighteenth century composers; all of them date from 1775 or later and none adheres to the pithy three movements in 10 minutes format most common to this era. They are fully formed and serious works.
In selecting a Mozart piano sonata set, one should give especial consideration to Mozart: The Piano Sonatas by Maria-João Pires in Deutsche Grammophon's Mozart Forever series. Recorded between 1989 and 1990, this digital set is a marvelous recording, every second of it, as Pires attends to Mozart's business without slavish adherence to the printed score, yet injects enough of herself into the music to help open it up -- there is never a cookie-cutter approach used in any of these sonatas. Deutsche Grammophon's recording is bright and true without being overpowering, and it's the kind of classical recording that makes one feel better about life and one's place in the world.
Some years back, a university study, now largely discredited, singled out the Sonata in D major for two pianos, K. 448, as a Mozart work that could be used to build the brains of babies. To ascribe such properties to a single Mozart piece seems ridiculous, and yet Mozart was an exceptional kind of genius, and the best of his music can make one feel noticeably better and more upbeat about life in general. Mozart struggled against smallpox, overwork, and variable cashflow situations in making most of his music -- he was genuinely afraid of death, and after a certain point in his career was often too busy celebrating life to voice his dread, nor for that matter to concoct sugary confections for the entertainment of nobles. In her performances, Pires seems to have her finger on that pulse, and this set is not one to miss. Despite its belonging to the Mozart Forever series, this is a limited edition, so if the desire is there one should act accordingly.