Alina Ibragimova & Cedric Tiberghien - Mozart: Violin Sonatas K303, 377, 378 & 403 (2017) [CD Rip]

The recordings of Mozart's works for piano and violin (as the packaging puts it, with historical accuracy) by pianist Cédric Tiberghien and violinist Alina Ibragimova roll on, with continuing impressive results. This volume is representative of the series, for those who are looking to try out just one album. As with the earlier albums, the program includes a strong complement of works from Mozart's childhood, and Ibragimova and Tiberghien work wonders with these. They scale down their playing to the works' miniature dimensions and sound world, and they have an uncanny way of catching the sense of discovery in the young Mozart's work. Sample one of the sonatas on disc two, perhaps the opening "Allegro maestoso" of the Violin Sonata in C major, K. 28, of 1766, when Mozart was nine. The mature compositions on this volume are both rare and unusually interesting; the Variations in G minor on "Hélas, j'ai perdu mon amant," K. 360, are achingly melancholy in the pair's reading, and the Violin Sonata in C major, K. 403, is an interestingly experimental work, rarely played because it remained unfinished. (It was completed by Maximilian Stadler, and is played in that version here.) As elsewhere, Tiberghien and Ibragimova cleanly identify the proper balances between piano and violin; the pieces are accompanied keyboard sonatas, but Mozart's mind was constantly turning over the directions in which things would soon go. Highly recommended for this repertory. -- James Manheim