This is a joyous debut CD by a young violinist who should have a great future.
Both instruments are from the Mozarteum Foundation, the small violin which
Mozart played as a child here entrusted to an 13 yr old violinist, who plays
with confidence and verve, going for it and pushing forward in a way to suggest
that she is in charge, and no way intimidated by the microphone or by the
weight of tradition. Whilst hearing it I pondered Clifford Bartlett's editorial
in Early Music Review, in which he asks whether the fashionable degrees of
subtlety which we now expect in musical interpretation are romantic inventions
of later eras?
Well balanced partnership by Sontraud Spiedel on a Walter fortepiano, just
right for these delightful sonatas. Very full and interesting notes about
the sonatas, and about the whole project and everyone concerned in it.
Warmly recommended, and one has to pray that Maria-Elizabeth will be allowed
to mature slowly, away from the pressures of the music industry.
Reviewer
Peter Grahame Woolf