For the Record, Op. 150: Rachel Podger's Mozart; Viktoria Mullova's Beethoven

March 26, 2021, 5:55 PM · Welcome to "For the Record," Violinist.com's weekly roundup of new releases of recordings by violinists, violists, cellists and other classical musicians. We hope it helps you keep track of your favorite artists, as well as find some new ones to add to your listening!

Violinist Rachel Podger and pianist Christopher Glynn

Mozart/Jones: Violin Sonatas Fragment Completions
Rachel Podger, violin
Christopher Glynn, fortepiano

Among the many instrumental pieces that remained incomplete at Mozart’s death were four particularly beautiful fragments for violin and piano. Timothy Jones, Music Professor at the Royal Academy of Music, has completed several of them based on Mozart’s evolving style during the 1780s. Rachel Podger and pianist Christopher Glynn perform six of these Sonata-Allegro fragments and a Fantasia for violin and piano in this album. Glynn performs on a fortepiano made in 2019 by Christoph Kern. BELOW: Sonata in A Major for Piano and Violin, Fr 1784b (Fragment Completion 1 by Timothy Jones)

Beethoven: Sonatas 4, 5 & 7
Viktoria Mullova, violin
Alasdair Beatson, piano

"This recording was born of a peculiar time. As a pandemic unfolded, as cities and countries shut down, and as concert life was put on hold, so the opportunity to immerse ourselves in Beethoven’s music opened up. In some ways the timing was auspicious – 2020 was not only an important anniversary year for Beethoven..., but we were also lucky to benefit from Clive Brown’s newly prepared Bärenreiter edition of the sonatas, published a matter of weeks before the recording," writes pianist Alasdair Beatson in the program notes for this album. "We present these sonatas on instruments appropriate to the early 1800s: a 1750 Giovanni Battista Guadagnini violin, strung with gut and played with a classical bow (made by Ralph Ashmead), and a replica of an 1805 Viennese Walter fortepiano built by Paul McNulty." BELOW: Viktoria Mullova and Alasdair Beatson perform Violin Sonata No. 4 in A Minor, Op. 23: I. Presto:

If you have a new recording you would like us to consider for inclusion in our Thursday "For the Record" feature, please e-mail Editor Laurie Niles. Be sure to include the name of your album, a link to it and a short description of what it includes.

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