You would hardly think that Mozart needs advocacy these days, but only four days before I wrote this review an opinionated record collector told me that his piano concertos are overrated and that his piano sonatas have even less interest. It is just as well pianists don't agree, and if advocacy of the sonatas is required both Maria Joao Pires and Andras Schiff do a pretty good job.
Pires, born in Lisbon in 1944, recorded them previously in 1974 in Tokyo for Denon. In his review (7/90), RW found her playing then to be polished but short on energy and personality. These DG recordings were made in 1989 and 1990 and it seems that with the passage of time she has become rather bolder in her treatment of the music. Yet in opening Allegro movements the vigour which she achieves tonally is sometimes weakened by her tendency to squeeze dynamics suddenly and there is an instability of pulse that arises out of a perhaps unconscious point-making. There are examples of this in the first movements of the C major Sonatas, K279 and K330, especially in the development section of the former, starting at 2'40'' (which is a touch overpedalled in places, too) and in the recapitulation of the opening music that follows at 3'19''. Some collectors (but I think not all) will be glad that Pires repeats both halves of the first movement of K279—and indeed those of the Andante and finale as well. She is probably at her best in slow movements such as this one, with its positive yet thoughtful delivery (that of K330 is stylish too). In the finale, she detaches the left-hand thirds in the opening theme where most pianists, including the fleeter Schiff, play them legato, but the playing is certainly neat and alert.
If I have devoted space so far on just two sonatas, I will excuse myself by saying that the characteristics Pires demonstrates here are also to be found in the later performances. I don't like everything, for example the declamatory presentation of the Adagio in K280, or the romanticized start to K282, which also has a jerky Minuet. The tragic A minor Sonata is not dramatic enough for my taste and its slow movement needs more poise (but the agitated Prokofievian finale is stylish). The lengthy finale of K333 is too gusty to sound graceful, and while technique is mostly very sure there's a slight smudge in bar 34 (in the repeat) of the first movement of K281. Even so, this playing is alive and interesting, and the recording gives a clean piano image and offers a wide yet appropriate dynamic range. For Pires at her elegant best, hear her account of K332 and K533/494, or K284, in which she makes the variation-form finale convincing at a slowish pace (ditto the finale of K309). To see if her personality appeals in its more controversial aspects, try the famous A major Sonata, K331 with its opening theme played winsomely and a leisurely, prettified 'Turkish Rondo' which, to judge from RW's review, has changed little over the years; also the rather lightweight treatment of the Fantasia and Sonata in C minor.
Against the six full-price discs of the Pires set, Schiff's Decca set comes at mid-price on five. His 1980 recordings have been remastered from analogue originals, and although they sound pretty well they are not as fresh-sounding as Pires's performances and there is noticeable background hiss. Schiff's playing is mainly substantial and stable; yet while anyone purchasing his current set of the concertos knows that he is today a splendid Mozartian, here I must utter a word of caution, for I find some of this sonata playing less than fully convincing, as in the finale of K333, where he is no more successful than Pires in letting the music speak for itself. Consequently he makes it sound self-conscious. The famous 'Easy' Sonata, K545, is crisp yet unmelodious, with its gentle Andante too unrelaxed (as is that of K283 in G major). Of course, there are fine things, not least the dramatic and urgent K475/457 (the C minor Fantasia and Sonata performed as a pair), and the playing is always clean if on the dry, non legato side.
This is a valuable set of the Mozart sonatas in its price range, but it is not equal to the best alternatives, among which are Barenboim (EMI) and Uchida (a Gramophone Award-winner on Philips) who, in different ways, offer greater depth and range. The chronological order that is mainly followed by Pires is abandoned here. Indeed the first sonata is on the fifth CD and the last on the second, but that matters little if you want to take the sonatas one at a time.'