Piano Sonata

This is the second album of Robert Markham's complete recording of the piano works of Franz Xaver Mozart. The young Mozart, who studied with Salieri and Hummel, was a composer and pianist like his father Wolfgang Amadeus, but inevitably stood under the pressure of great expectations. This album contains his most extensive work for solo piano, the Piano Sonata in G major, a confident, characteristic piece that brings dance and verve into harmony together. His most virtuosic work is the exuberant 'Fantasy on a Russian Song' and a Krakowiak, while his mischievous 'Variations on a Russian Theme' and the Variations on his father's 'Don Giovanni' illustrate Franz Xaver's great gift for development and playfulness. Robert Markham, who has researched the life and music of Franz Xaver Mozart, is praised as an interpreter of remarkable clarity and coherence.