After their disc devoted to the Sonatas of Grieg, the Latvian violinist Vineta Sareika and the French pianist Amandine Savary tackle Mozart for their second recording. In three sonatas of markedly different characters, the two former partners of the Trio Dali have retained their perfect harmony for performing and indeed producing a major version of these works.

The earliest compositions of the young Wolfgang Amadeus appeared in printed form when he was only eight years old; among these are the Sonates pour le Clavecin qui peuvent se jouer avec l’Accompagnement du Violon. He retained this title until, 15 years later, he began seriously to write and develop his sonatas for piano and violin, shortly before he settled definitively in Vienna.

If the first sonata on this disc, the Sonata K376, has no great formal originality, the dialogue between the violin and the piano is intensely varied and overall the work develops both charm and considerable tranquillity. Dating from the same year, the Sonata K379 was composed very rapidly; Mozart asserts he wrote it in an hour, without having the time to write down on paper the piano part that he performed from memory at its first performance the next day. Despite these unusual circumstances, it is one of the most beautiful and original of his works for piano and violin. Its structure, for a supposedly ‘classical’ sonata, is unusual: the first movement opens with an elaborate Adagio that, at the re-exposition, connects to a forthright, agitated Allegro. Then comes the second movement which presents itself as a ‘Theme and Variations’ and exploits great freedom and diversity of atmosphere; the recap of the theme enables the sonata to reach a gentle, discrete conclusion. Composed a few days after Eine kleine Nachtmusik, the Sonata K526 is one of his most dazzling compositions, with big movements in exceptionally quick tempi; there reigns here the permanent impression that the composer is delighting in his natural mastery of counterpoint and his art, uniquely so.

Vineta Sareika and Amandine Savary demonstrate once again a sublime, jubilant feeling for chamber music. As for their preceding collaboration: “The symbiosis is perfect between two musicians. The vital, solar violin of Sareika is answered by the expressive, structured piano playing of Savary.”