Viviana Sofronitsky & Mozart

No. 262 of the ongoing ITYWLTMT series of audio montages can be found in our archives at https://archive.org/details/pcast262

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** This episode was published on Pod-O-Matic ahead of schedule, so here's the accompanying blog post **

In recent weeks, I have dedicated a number of my posts and playlists to Mozart’s piano concertos – this is part of an ongoing arc I began in the summer of 2015 which should ultimately result with having programmed all 27 piano concerti in ITYWLTMT podcasts.

Today’s installment is a convergence of sorts – Mozart and “old keyboards”, the latter having been the subject of a montage earlier this year. Russian-born pianist Viviana Sofronitsky is the daughter of pianist Vladimir Sofronitsky. Born in Moscow, she began studying music at home before she was enrolled in the Central Music School. She advanced to the Moscow Conservatory, where she earned a DMA. While living in the Soviet Union, she pursued her interest in early music by working with such period ensembles as Madrigal and the Chamber Music Academy, appearing additionally as a soloist in Moscow, Leningrad, and other major cities.

Sofronitsky moved to the United States in 1989 to study early music at Oberlin College Conservatory of Music, then moved to Toronto, where she participated in performances and recording sessions with Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra. She became a Canadian citizen in 1994.

In 1999, she received degrees in fortepiano, harpsichord, and early music performance from the Royal Conservatory in The Hague. She has lived in the Czech Republic since 2001 with her husband, Paul McNulty, a manufacturer of fortepiano replicas that Sofronitsky collects and plays. She performs on a two-manual harpsichord by Yves Beaupré, a Viennese fortepiano by F. Teller, and copies of fortepianos by Stein, Walter, Graf, Pleyel, and Boisselot.

Her 2005-06 11CD box set with Musicae Antiquae Collegium Varsoviense constitutes the first-ever complete cycle of Mozart’s works for keyboard and orchestra performed on “original” instruments. The orchestra’s musical director Tadeusz Karolak carefully shapes the orchestra's performance, and expertly melds their performance to the soloists to create a whole greater than the sum of its parts.

In today’s montage I have retained four of these concerti; the first (no. 2) is performed on the harpsichord and the remaining three (nos. 5, 6 and 11) are performed on the fortepiano.

More selections from the set (YouTube) - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtAALrT5fq6WtXobepmmbhx6kcO2mS3zt

I think you will love this music too!