Mozart & Jones: Violin Sonatas Fragment Completions

Chronique

Mozart left a surprising number of fragments for someone who spent most of his career writing music intended for specific occasions. Many consist of a theme that was set down and then, for whatever reason, abandoned, and they may simply represent the fecundity of Mozart's melodic imagination. They've been the subject of attempted completions less often than Mahler's Symphony No. 10 or Schubert's "Unfinished" Symphony, or, for that matter, Mozart's Requiem in D minor, K. 626, where an editor has a good deal of music and more clues to go on. Here, Timothy Jones has basically an opening section plus a blank slate. His completions don't always sound Mozartian, but he does well to offer multiple realizations of the same fragment. For a 1784 Sonata in A major for piano and violin, he did no fewer than four; listeners here are favored with two. There are two other pairs, and the completions of a late G major fragment are especially interesting inasmuch as Jones proposes two quite different ways of looking at the sparse textures of Mozart's late keyboard music. This is not just a recording for Mozart geeks but one that might find uses in university analysis classes, and the idiomatic performances by Rachel Podger, playing a 1739 Pesarinius violin, and fortepianist Christopher Glynn are clear and attractive.
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