Mozart: The Secret Mozart

CML call number: CD/CLASSICAL/Mozart
Anne Midgette wrote in the New York Times: "In 'The Secret Mozart' … Christopher Hogwood offers a range of works — from a four-handed sonata to a little piece the 12-year-old composer doodled on the back of a program — on three different 18th-century clavichords, one of them Mozart's own. … Clavichords are hard to record, in part because it's hard to get a sense of scale. On this CD the only indication of the smallness of its tone is the largeness of the auxiliary noises: the performer's inhalations, or the rising and falling of the keys with a haze of clicks. Still, there is a sense of intimacy: partly because of the distinctive metallic sound, partly because some of the works Mr. Hogwood offers are more jottings of spontaneous ideas than polished final products. Among the nicest inclusions are the Andante and Five Variations in G (K. 501) and the Sonata in D (K. 381) for four hands, which Mr. Hogwood plays with the keyboard restorer and builder Derek Adlam. They are reminders of the social aspects of music at a time when two people might sit down at the clavichord as if to play a game, making music not for an audience but for each other."