Thomas Leininger’s approach to performing late eighteenth-century fortepiano music by Mozart and Beethoven is rooted in the playing styles of the time. He not only liberates himself from the written page to embrace a powerful form of musical oratory that lays the foundation for his evocative performing style but he also improvises a prelude before each of the three sonatas.
Thomas begins with Mozart’s Fantasie in D- (K.397), which sets a tone of spontaneity for the album, and he borrows ideas from Muzio Clementi and Carl Czerny for his extempore preludes.
But beyond freely improvised introductions to the sonatas, his oratorical sensibilities extend to many practices typical of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century performers: flexibility of rhythm and tempo, ornamental variations, cadenzas, dis-location of the hands, an individual character for each section of the music, and frequent use of the moderato lever.
TR 1901
Length: 78:14
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SAMPLE TRACKS
“Leininger produces from the instrument ...
an incredible wealth of colour and expressive possibilities. Above all, it is the choice of tempo and the spontaneous (tempo) changes that give the interpretation completely new drama and rhetoric. In the process,
[his playing] ... achieves a narrative
suggestive power, which appears
entirely natural and obvious.”
Remy Franck, Pizzicato (20.04.2019)
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Album booklet
Sheet music
TRACKS
01 W.A. Mozart Fantasie, D Minor, K.397 [6:12]
W.A. Mozart Sonata, A Major, K.331
02 Prelude [2:31]
03 Andante grazioso [13:37]
04 Menuetto & Trio [6:15]
05 Rondo alla Turca, Allegretto [3:53]
W.A. Mozart Sonata, F Major, K.332
06 Prelude [0:28]
07 Allegro [9:36]
08 Adagio [4:37]
09 Allegro assai [8:16]
L. van Beethoven Sonata, F Minor, Op. 2, No. 1
10 Prelude [0:51]
11 Allegro [6:20]
12 Adagio [5:27]
13 Menuetto & Trio [4:37]
14 Prestissimo [5:27]