Brilliant Classics is one of today’s leading exponents of high quality, low cost CDs. Among its many fine super-budget offerings are such memorable performances as Jascha Horenstein’s classic Mahler Third (part of a multidisc set) and Rudolf Barshai’s remarkable live Mahler Fifth (coupled with Barshai’s own performing edition of the Mahler 10th). And now there is this complete set of Mozart’s 18 piano sonatas, in state of the art sound, as played by Hungarian pianist Klára Würtz. Her performances are, in a word, miraculous.

Listening to this set left me almost (but obviously, not quite) speechless. By the time I finished auditioning just the first six sonatas, I knew that Würtz’s Mozart was something special. Mozart’s piano works are deceptive: they seem so easy to play, while in fact they are so hard to play well. Frankly, I long regarded the earlier sonatas as being of rather minor interest, and recordings by Barenboim, Schiff, and Uchida did nothing to change my mind. But under Würtz’s supremely capable fingers, these “little” pieces have a degree of nuance, color, variety, and personality I had never thought possible. So it went throughout the entire set. Even after trotting out a few “old standby” readings (e.g., Samuel Feinberg in K 282, Rosita Renard in K 310, Leon Fleisher’s K 330, Solomon’s K 331), I found myself preferring the magical sensitivity of Würtz virtually across the board. After hearing her Mozart, my old Seraphim LP set with Walter Gieseking, a pianist I otherwise much admire, now sounds like superficial sight-readings. Artur Schnabel’s often blunt masculinity works well in his Beethoven sonatas, but it causes Mozart’s to suffer. And much as I treasure the playing of Sviatoslav Richter, his Mozart simply lacks the idiomatic grace of Würtz.

I still cherish the regrettably few Mozart recordings of Clara Haskil, and I retain a fondness for Mieczyslaw Horszowski’s Mozart sonatas on Arbiter CDs (despite the occasional clinkers). But this phenomenal effort by Klára Würtz is now my preferred version. These astonishing performances are exactly they way I play them myself—in my wildest dreams, that is. As for the set’s modest price, this is surely one of the best bargains since the days when gasoline sold for $.30 per gallon and free glassware was yours for the asking. Highest recommendation.

Jeffrey J. Lipscomb, FANFARE