Multi-award-winning pianist Víkingur Ólafsson turns his attention to the music of Mozart. Juxtaposing works by Mozart, Haydn and C.P.E. Bach with rarely-recorded Galuppi and Cimarosa, Mozart & Contemporaries dispels the image of Mozart as the angelic and prodigious idiot savant, instead presenting a mature composer through music primarily dating from the 1780s. All is artfully brought together by Ólafsson's signature thought-provoking programming. Ólafsson comments: "I find this decade of Mozart's life and art endlessly fascinating. Mozart was not just a composer, and I feel that when he was writing for himself as a virtuoso pianist he indulged more than ever in the sublime playfulness that lay at the core of his originality and inventiveness. This is the period when Mozart was not just perfecting the Classical tradition but subtly subverting it... the shadows are darker, the nuances and ambiguities more profound."
1. Baldassare Galuppi: Andante spiritoso from Piano Sonata No. 9 in F minor
2. W. A. Mozart: Rondo in F major, K 494
3. Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach: Rondo II in D minor, H 290
4. Domenico Cimarosa: Sonata No. 42 in D minor: Andantino (Arr. by Víkingur Ólafsson)
5. W. A. Mozart: Fantasia in D minor, K 397 (Fragment)
6. W. A. Mozart: Rondo in D major, K 485
7. Domenico Cimarosa: Sonata No. 55 in A minor (Arr. by Víkingur Ólafsson)
8. Franz Joseph Haydn: Piano Sonata No. 47 in B minor: I. Allegro moderato
9. Franz Joseph Haydn: Piano Sonata No. 47 in B minor: II. Menuet
10. Franz Joseph Haydn: Piano Sonata No. 47 in B minor: III. Finale - Presto
11. W. A. Mozart: Kleine Gigue in G, K 574
12. W. A. Mozart: Piano Sonata No. 16 in C major, K 545 “Sonata facile”: I. Allegro
13. W. A. Mozart: Piano Sonata No. 16 in C major, K 545 “Sonata facile”: II. Andante
14. W. A. Mozart: Piano Sonata No. 16 in C major, K 545 “Sonata facile”: III. Rondo. Allegretto
15. W. A. Mozart: Adagio in E flat, arr. by Víkingur Ólafsson from String Quintet No. 3 in G minor, K 516
LP2
1. Baldassare Galuppi: Larghetto from Piano Sonata No. 34 in C minor
2. W. A. Mozart: Piano Sonata No. 14 in C minor, K 457: I. Molto allegro
3. W. A. Mozart: Piano Sonata No. 14 in C minor, K 457: II. Adagio
4. W. A. Mozart: Piano Sonata No. 14 in C minor, K 457: III. Allegro assai
5. W. A. Mozart: Adagio in B minor, K 540
6. W. A. Mozart: Ave verum corpus, K 618 (Transcr. for solo piano by Franz Liszt)
