Introduction
A lot of people who do not like the sound of an 18th-century piano do so for the reason that they compare it directly to its modern counterpart. In fact they are very different instruments, the one aimed at making a silvery, delicate but brilliant timbre, the other designed to produce a powerful, homogenous sound. [1] Mozart Sonata in B Flat, K281, which was played by Alfred Brendel, Linda Nicholson and Uchida, is a rarity in that it follows almost every rule of sonata-allegro form and differs by its individuality depending on the style of musician performing it.
Discussion
To compare the style of Mozart Sonata performance by different musician it is important to take into account the rhythm and their individual style. The play of Mozart’ Sonata in B flat, K 281, by Brenel is considered to be natural representation with the involvement of technical challenges. The performance of Mozart’s Sonata by Brendel sounds natural reflecting only small graceful shadings of personal style on the work. In comparison with Brendel’s performance Linda Nicholson’s manner of Mozart piano sonata presentation is filled with her own techniques she used to follow in her music. Her music sounds natural and contains a great number of subtle nuances but it should be noted that Mozart Sonata in B Flat, K28, is a bit dry in her manner of presentation. She tried to contribute her own individuality and reflect the notes on modernism in sonata. It should be noted that Brendel’s play is more rhythmical and sounds fast and energetic. The calmest performance of Mozart Sonata in B Flat, K281 is reproduced by Uchida. Mitsuko Uchida managed to play Mozart Sonata with delicacy and lightness showed through the instrument performance. She tries to show balance between her individual style and Mozart manner of play. Sonata in B flat, K 281, appeared to be performed through various variation movements trying to follow Mozart stylish mastery and strong imaginative music characteristics. Her performance of Mozart Sonata is considered to be alive and rhythmical though the rhythm is not so quick as it was performed by Brendel and Nicholson. The tone of her play is low and slow; she used to mix Mozart original sounds with low-pitch tones of the piano. The differences lie in the types of pianos used by Mozart and modern musicians. Besides, Alfred Brendel, Linda Nicholson and Uchida reflected their own interpretation of Sonata making it either energetic as it was shown by Alfred Brendel and Linda Nicholson or melodic and slowly performed by Uchida. All Mozart versions appeared to be individual disclosing the mood and music perception of the performers.
All the recordings analyzed will allow developing personal interpretation of Mozart Sonata. Taking into account Brendel’s natural manner of presentation and Nicholson’s techniques mixed with Uchida’s low timbre one can create individual performance of the components contributing personal understanding and interpretation of Mozart’s work.
Conclusion
So, Alfred Brendel, Linda Nicholson and Uchida have their own style of Mozart Sonata performance differing by their uniqueness. The original version of Mozart Sonata in B Flat, K28 is a significant contribution to the world music; its versions performed by different outstanding prove the majestic value Mozart contributed to art.
End Notes
Knox, H and Sweelinck, J (2005). Sweelinck: Selected Works for Harpsichord Miscellaneous publication.
Lambacher, SG, Martens, WL, Kakehi, K, Marasinghe, CA, and Molholt, G (2005). The effects of identification training on the identification and production of American English vowels by native speakers of Japanese Applied Psycholinguistics, 26:227-247.
Levitin, DJ (2005). Musical Behavior in a Neurogenetic Developmental Disorder: Evidence from Williams Syndrome Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1060:325-334.
Levitin, DJ and Menon, V (2005). The Neural Locus of Temporal Structure and Expectancies in Music: Evidence From Functional Neuroimaging At 3 Tesla Music Perception, 22:563-575.
Martens, WL (2005). The impact of variation in low-frequency interaural cross correlation on auditory spatial imagery in stereophonic loudspeaker reproduction In: 149th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, vol. 117-4, pp. 2390, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Martens, WL and Woszczyk, W. Multimodal interaction in the perception of impact events displayed via a multichannel audio and simulated structure-borne vibration In: Noise-Con 2005, vol. 118, pp. 1920, Minneapolis, MN, USA.
Martens, WL, Altinsoy, E, Begault, D, and Woszczyk, W. Audio-Haptic Interaction (What’s Shakin’ You?) In: AES Barcelona 2005, Barcelona, Spain.
McEnnis, D, McKay, C, Fujinaga, I, and Depalle, P. jAudio: A Feature Extraction Library In: ISMIR 2005, 6th International Conference on Music Information Retrieval, pp. 600-603, London, UK.
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