Roberta Rust - Mozart Matures (2022) [Hi-Res]

On MOZART MATURES: 1780s Piano Works, pianist Roberta Rust perceptively explores Mozart’s personal artistic journey and progression from an extraordinary talent to an immortal giant of musical composition.

Largely eschewing the popular tunes, Rust instead carefully handpicked musical selections designed to showcase the composer’s structural, technical, and harmonic development. The Sonata in F Major, K. 332, with its never-ending twists and turns, makes for a great starting point. But, considering that Rust is a talented extemporizer on the piano herself, it comes as no surprise that many of the pieces on MOZART MATURES are those originally conceived as improvisations. There are the two Fantasies in D minor and C minor, but also the quirky, prescient Gigue which Mozart hastily wrote into a German friend’s friendship album. And lest things get out of hand, the calmer Adagio in B minor as well as the Rondo in A minor round off the selection with timeless depth and serenity – the particular kind achieved in history by this one singular composer.