This Gramola disc featuring the
Mozart sonatas for keyboard and violin, K. 377, K. 379, and K. 526, is perhaps more interesting because of the instruments used than for the performances themselves. Fortepianist
Paul Badura-Skoda plays on an instrument by the famed Viennese maker Anton Walter, the same maker responsible for producing
Mozart's own much-adored instrument. Violinist
Thomas Albertus Irnberger plays on a 1656 instrument of Jacobus Stainer, again the same maker responsible for
Mozart's favorite violin, which in turn inspired the composition of K. 526. While the instruments heard in this recording are not the same owned by
Mozart, it's reasonable to assume that they have a similar sound profile. Of the two musicians playing,
Badura-Skoda offers the most musically enjoyable and technically accurate performance. His finesse on the Walter instrument is elegant, refined, nimble, and results in a pleasing palate of sound color that makes it easy to see why Walter's fortepianos were so venerated. The tone of the Stainer violin is equally focused and powerful, but
Irnberger's playing falls far short of his collaborator. There are many inappropriate slides into big shifts, articulation is not always as crisp and precise as the fortepiano, and there is a definite tendency of
Irnberger to rush ahead of the solid tempo laid out by
Badura-Skoda. As a study of the sound quality of
Mozart's instruments, this album is certainly worth checking out, but there are alternative recordings available that are more technically and musically balanced between the violin and keyboard parts.