My first Gramophone review, by Richard Wigmore

Several slots on BBC Radio 3’s Record Review, and encouragement from critic Robert Layton, prompted a lunch with Gramophone editor James Jolly, looking for someone to ‘do’ Haydn symphonies. Those were palmy days when Haydn recordings were teeming promiscuously off the presses. A high-octane set of Sturm und Drang symphonies from Trevor Pinnock’s English Concert – still arguably unsurpassed – duly landed on the doormat in the summer of 1990. By then, though, I had produced on my new Amstrad what now seems an indulgently long, Beckmesserish review of a reissued Mozart sonata cycle from Maria João Pires. 

With so many writers I had admired since my teens on Gramophone’s roster – Stanley Sadie, Richard Osborne, Stephen Plaistow, John Steane et al – I was anxious above all to prove myself worthy. In those early days worthy too often equalled wordy. Re-reading that July 1990 review, I’m struck by how intent I was on looking for trouble and impressing my critical acumen on a discerning readership. I pounced eagerly on the interpretative points I didn’t agree with (negative criticism minimises the danger of blandness, my prime fear as a Gramophone novice), worrying away at them, magnifying them. I don’t recant all of my original words. Pires’s exquisitely finished playing, early-’80s vintage, can still seem too yielding and decorous. Maybe I’m going soft. But her subsequent recordings of Mozart concertos, and her performance the D minor, K466, in Salzburg a couple of months ago, are among the finest, most penetrating I have heard.  

Mozart Piano Sonatas: C major, K279/ 189d; F major, K280/l89e; B flat major, K281/189f; E flat major, K282/189g; G major, K283/189h; D major, K284/205b; C major, K309/284b; A minor, K310/ 300d; D major, K311/284c; C major, K330/300h; A major, K331/300i; F major, K332/300k; B flat major, K333/315c; C minor, K457. Fantasia in C minor, K475; F major, K533/494; C major, K545 ; B flat major, K570; D major, K576. Fantasia in D minor, K397/385g. Rondo in D major, K485. Rondo in A minor, K511

Maria João Pires pf

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Complete sets of Mozart sonatas come thick and fast these days, with recent cycles by Engel, Schiff and the Gramophone Award-winning Uchida, on Teldec, Decca and Philips respectively, and another one underway from Malcolm Bilson for Hungaroton/Conifer. The present set, containing the sonatas, the C minor and D minor Fantasias and the two Rondos, K485 and K511, is a mid-price reissue of performances recorded in Tokyo in 1974 which have hitherto been available here separately. Pires has always been something of a Mozart specialist, and her playing is tasteful and cleanly articulated, the lyrical melodies sensitively shaped, the passage work fluent and even. Nothing she does is ever harsh or graceless. But poise and polish will only take you so far in Mozart. Even in the earliest , interpretively least demanding sonatas, I quickly began to long for sharper characterization, more dynamic variety and a firmer control of the music's structure. Pires tends to shy away from a forte at the earliest opportunity, and consistently smooths down Mozart's fp accents; and her inclination to linger at cadences frequently robs the music of forward impulse. In the F major Sonata, K280, for instance, Pires's want of rhythmic and harmonic impetus and narrow dynamic range mean that the short first-movement development actually reduces the tension; the F minor siciliano slow movement lacks a firm underlying pulse, while the finale is short on wit and whimsy, with insufficiently crisp staccato playing. Turn to Schiff or Uchida in this sonata and you immediately hear the difference between graceful good taste and a really vital and imaginative response to the music. 

As you might expect, the limitations of Pires's playing are even more evident in the later sonatas, which suggest a richer and more complex musical experience than she is willing, or able, to provide. The first movement of the B flat Sonata , K333, is a typical example. It's neat and elegant, but underprojected, with too many enervating ritardandos and no attempt to 'orchestrate' the music. This sonata demonstrates as well as any other a pervasive weakness of Pires's playing – a blandness and sameness in her handling of Mozart's Alberti bass figuration, with the harmonic changes rarely telling as they can. The famous Rondo alla turca from the A major Sonata, K331, receives the gentlest, most yielding performance in my experience; there is a wistful delicacy in the refrain that almost suggests Schubert's first F minor Momenl musical, but the cumulative effect is unconvincing, with little sense of swagger in the A major sections. 

Both of the great late-period sonatas, the F major, K533/494 and the D major, K576, emerge too blithe and lightweight here, their wiry, sometimes astringent counterpoint insufficiently taut and incisive. And if you expect to be challenged and disturbed by the two minor-keyed sonatas, K310 and K457, Pires's readings will seem woefully underplayed. The opening Allegro maestoso of K310, another victim of excessive rhythmic yielding, is almost decorous, as if Pires were seeking to purge the music of pain. The fierce harmonic clashes do not sting as they should, and there is no sense of inexorably mounting agitation in the development. The C minor, K457 is similarly short on urgency, dramatic contrast and cumulative tension. The sonata's very opening, with the grim ascending arpeggio shaded away to piano and the answering phrase slightly protracted, epitomizes Pires's performance as a whole. 

Pires is niggardly in the matter of repeats, making exposition repeats in first movements but not in sonata-form finales, let alone slow movements. And in the Andante of K330 she unbalances the structure by ignoring both repeats in the F minor central section. The recorded sound, like the playing, is agreeable but a bit shallow and confined, with insufficient depth to the bass. This set may be considerably cheaper than the cycles by Uchida and Schiff but it will satisfy only those Mozartians who value restraint, tastefulness and a pellucid cantabile style above all else. 

Richard Wigmore (Gramophone, July 1990)

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