![Rachmaninoff, Strauss, Wagner & Verdi: Works](https://img2.kuwo.cn/star/albumcover/500/15/17/2616802964.jpg)
Rachmaninoff, Strauss, Wagner & Verdi: Works
The third volume of Peter Donohoe’s acclaimed survey of Mozart’s Piano Sonatas for SOMM Recordings focuses on three works from the second half of the 1780s – including his last exercise in the form, Sonata No.18 (K576) – together with two exquisite miniatures. Although likely composed as teaching materials, the sibling Sonatas Nos.10 (K330) and 11 (K331) eloquently push their intended student- players with considerable technical challenges that point to Mozart’s own development as a composer. The C major Sonata No.10 opens in an unabashedly didactic frame of mind before blossoming into a rich and satisfying work, by turns playfully intimate, operatic and always testing the abilities of soloist and piano. As Christopher Morley notes in his informative booklet notes, the Sonata No.11 in A major, with its tradition-defying structure, seems “more like a suite than a conventional sonata”. Opening with variations on Rechte Lebensart (‘The right way of living’), a song from southern Germany where Mozart’s father Le