Robert Silverman Records the Mozart Piano Sonatas

Robert Silverman (call him "Bob") just doesn't let up. Currently, he is performing the entire Beethoven piano sonatas at both the Jazz Cellar in Vancouver as part of the "Music on Main" series, as well as Le Petit Trianon Theatre in San Jose, where he will also re-record all of the Beethoven sonatas. This marks Bob as one of very few pianists to achieve this feat. This project will take Bob through the spring of 2011. Now, he has just released a box set of all of Mozart's 18 piano sonatas, entitled "Complete Mozart Sonatas", plus the Fantasie K. 475.

Why did Robert Silverman take on this long-term recording venture? Bob's relationship with Mozart is complex. He had kept a few sonatas in his repertoire for his recital dates in New York, London, Toronto, and Montreal. He always felt they were brilliant small masterpieces, more so than they received credit for. It was a project he felt more able to take on, once he performed and recorded all the Beethoven sonatas. To approach the Mozart project, Bob explains, "I am convinced that a major reconfiguring of technique is in order, for any traditionally trained player wishing to seriously explore the Mozart sonatas, post-Beethoven. The late 19th century 'competitive' pianism favoured by today's young keyboard athletes is contrary to what is required for this music: expressiveness, touch, inflection, and dynamics, even the basic hand position, require special thought and study. I only had time to do this properly after I'd fully retired from my teaching duties."

Silverman decided not to take a generic approach to all the works, but to allow each sonata's personality to come through. "In order to perceive Mozart as he must have appeared to his contemporaries, you have to forget all music written since, from Beethoven onward. Each sonata has its own story to tell. They were not all intended to 'go down easy,'" he explains. Bob also likes to reconcile the traditional approach with the modern. He isn't one to just "play what the master left us"; he varies repeated melodies and introduces brief cadenzas where appropriate, as musicians of Mozart's era did in typical concert performance.

The order of the sonatas took its cue from the Star Wars films: at the suggestion of Ray Kimber, director of IsoMike, he said, "like the films, do the central sonatas first, follow up with the last four which are non-canonical, as a sequel; then finish with the first six as a prequel."

In other news this season, Robert Silverman will visit McGill University's Schulich School of Music for several intensive teaching sessions, and he will give a solo recital January 11, plus two lecture-recitals. Editing continues on a new recording for Stereophile, featuring Brahms' Handel Variations and Schumann's Symphonic Etudes.
Active on Facebook, Silverman enjoys an enormous following on the internet, where a generous selection of his recordings is accessible on YouTube and iLike.

Engineered and mastered by Graemme Brown, "Complete Mozart Sonatas" consists of seven discs on the IsoMike label. The catalogue number is IsoMike 5602 and is available at http://www.isomike.com/silverman_mozart.html and Amazon at www.amazon.com. Please visit www.robert-silverman.com for more information.

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