''Mozart's Sonata, K526 represents his final thoughts on the medium although it was not actually his last sonata for piano and violin.'' So Stanley Sadie's booklet essay provocatively informs us, and I think that to avoid puzzling his readers (including this one) he should have followed this observation at once by saying that he finds the later Sonata in F major ''more conservative'', instead of leaving this explanation until the next page.
In fact, the A major Sonata is an extraordinary and very fine piece, with a Molto Allegro first movement in 6/8 whose vivacity is matched by its rhythmic ingenuity. Perlman and Barenboim have been recording the sonatas for some years now (these performances done in Paris date from June last year) and clearly have a firm rapport, while, not surprisingly, the individual mastery of the two instruments is never in doubt. Yet I find myself less than enraptured. For one thing, often I felt the sound to be almost uncomfortably real: maybe that statement makes poor critical sense, but let it stand, in the sense that if you like your Mozart violin sonatas to be gentle on the ear you should sample before buying. And in the first movement of K526 there is an impatient quality about the playing, not least in the development (3'39'') where Barenboim more than once snatches early at the first beat of a bar and, having done so, hurries the rest of it.
The pianist's role is, of course, crucial in this music 'for piano and violin', and as someone else has pointed out of an earlier issue in this series, ''it is Barenboim who leads''. I expected his way with the music to be gentler than this; and exhilarating though it may be, lovable it is not. The long central Andante—playing here for nearly 12 minutes even without the repeat of the second half—is intelligently shaped, but neither artist gives us the tonal radiance of which they are capable, and in the brilliant rondo finale I wish that they had shown more consistently the piano/forte contrast of the echoed phrases of the opening melody.
After this great sonata, the F major, written ''for beginners'', seems to me utterly nondescript (the booklet calls it ''a distinctive product of Mozart's high maturity''!), but in the initial Andante cantabile Perlman gives us more than hitherto of the tonal warmth and affectionate phrasing for which he is famous. Similarly, in the F minor variation for solo piano in the finale (5'07''), Barenboim is quietly eloquent, and he's also marvellously fleet in the next one, which ends the work. Otherwise, one feels that composer and artists alike could have been mostly on automatic pilot for this sonata. One can't help wishing that room had been found for more music on this disc lasting 44 minutes.'