Complete Piano Sonatas : Pienaar (5CD)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Complete Piano Sonatas

Sonata No.1 K279 in C major
Sonata No.2 K280 in F major
Sonata No.3 K281 in B flat major
Sonata No.4 K282 in E flat major
Sonata No.5 K283 in G
Sonata No.6 K284 'Durnitz' in D major
Sonata No.7 K309 in C major
Sonata No.8 K311 in D
Sonata No.9 K310 in A minor
Sonata No.10 K330 in C major
Sonata No.11 K331 'Alla Turca' in A major
Sonata No.12 K332 in F major
Sonata No.13 K333 in B flat major
Fantasie K475 in C minor
Sonata No.14 K457 in C minor
Sonata No.15 K533/494 in F major
Sonata No.16 K545 'Fur Anfanger' in C major
Sonata No.17 K570 in B flat major
Sonata No.18 K576 in D major

Daniel-Ben Pienaar, piano
Recorded: 08/2008, 09/2009

South African-born, London resident Daniel-Ben Pienaar makes his Avie debut with an ambitious recording project: the complete Piano Sonatas by Mozart. South African-born, London resident Daniel-Ben Pienaar is a completist. Recent surveys, both on the concert platform and in the recording studio, include Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, Chopin’s Complete Waltzes, Schubert’s Complete Sonatas, and the complete keyboard works by Orlando Gibbons. He arrives on Avie with another major project in tow: the complete Piano Sonatas by Mozart. An active recitalist and chamber musician, and professor at the Royal Academy of Music, Pienaar has a number of critically acclaimed independent releases under his belt, but this recording represents and uncommon synergy between artist, repertoire and production values. In Gramophone Award-winning producer Jonathan Freeman-Atwood, Pienaar found a special simpatico which he found “profoundly enabling”, resulting in a creative recording process specific in relation to the music in hand.

Pienaar presents the works chronologically over five CDs, illustrating Mozart’s compositional trajectory which represents all of the major stylistic and emotional shifts in his mature career, with the earliest dating from his twentieth year, through his Viennese period, and the final works which were written towards the end of his all too brief life.

“Daniel-Ben Pienaar's performances are quite simply stunning. The instrument he plays matters much less than his musicianship, which is evident at every turn.” - Gramophone.

“A kaleidoscope of colours and textures in performances that combined the dramatic with the ethereal, the monumental with the intimate” - International Piano.