Alina Ibragimova, Cedric Tiberghien - Mozart: Violin Sonatas Nos. 1, 2, 4, 10, 14, 22, 24, 29 (2016) CD-Rip

"Mozart Violin Sonatas," proclaims the main graphic of this release by pianist Cédric Tiberghien and violinist Alina Ibragimova. Then the track list title reads "Sonatas for keyboard and violin." In reality the program contains both types, for the two-CD set traverses much of Mozart's output for the two instruments, and his attitude toward the relationship between them changed over the course of his career. Programs including large groups of these sonatas inevitably include juvenilia, which really were sonatas for keyboard (a harpsichord originally) with a violin providing light ornamentation, but the later works, as much as anything else Mozart wrote, look forward to Beethoven. Tiberghien and Ibragimova succeed on two counts with this rather mixed bag: they alter the balance between the instruments according to the nature of the texture, and they structure the program well, with the early works, written when Mozart was about eight, serving as interludes between more substantial pieces. Sample the final Violin Sonata in A major, K 305, admired by Beethoven and containing strong links to the Beethoven Sonata Op. 12, No. 2, and contrast the silvery sound of Ibragimova's violin here to its restrained chirps in the earlier sonatas. A worthwhile Mozart chamber release.