This DVD might not be for everybody but for anyone who is serious
about Mozart’s piano music it is both fascinating and
informative. Professor Andrzej Jasiński proves to be a
humble yet erudite guide to these two Mozart sonatas (K. 330
and K. 457). Filmed in a large hall, the students listen attentively
throughout his 90 minute lecture-performance. If any of them
lost focus, the camera never found them.
In his opening remarks, Jasiński contends that music mirrors
what is in the heart, expressing what cannot be expressed in
words. Therefore, it is the job of today’s performers
to learn as much as possible about not only the particular piece
they are playing, but also the person who composed that piece.
This is demonstrated in his discussion of the C Major Sonata
(K. 330), which he sees as an example of Mozart’s two
major personality traits. Reading from Mozart’s letters
to various people, Jasiński suggests the first trait is
Mozart’s somewhat infamous frivolous side. Yet he also
suggests there is an aspect we acknowledge less often, a profoundly
spiritual side with faith in a God that will care for him, in
this life and after death. He then shows how both of these traits
are written into the music. As you might expect, the playful
quick, non-legato music equates with the frivolous, while the
spiritual finds expression in the music that is legato and more
richly harmonized.
Jasiński also speaks of the piano writing as analogous
to orchestral instruments and vocal terms. For instance, he
equates the opening bars of the K. 330 to a string quartet,
suggesting that the right-hand melody be played like the first
violin, with the left-hand voices taken by the other members
of the quartet. On several occasions in this movement, he encourages
his students to play the melody as a singer would phrase and
shape it.
These points are made phrase by phrase, sometimes even measure
by measure, always with an eye towards examining how what is
written on the page expresses what Mozart might be feeling and/or
trying to express. One might suggest that this is an overly
romantic way to view and discuss music from the Classical Period,
but I found it entirely convincing.
When he talks through an entire movement, Jasiński sits
down at the piano and plays the movement, allowing us to listen
out for all that he has described. Finally, after going through
the same process for movements 2 and 3, he plays the entire
C Major Sonata. His performance is wonderfully agile, true to
the music on the page and the spirit that he has described within
those notes.
The same process is repeated for the Sonata in C minor, K. 457.
Here he makes particular effort to point out where Mozart’s
music looks forward to other composers in later periods. To
begin, he argues that this C minor Sonata follows the same emotional
trajectory of struggling from darkness into light that is found
in Beethoven’s famous fifth symphony. There are several
times where he notes that a certain harmonic progression is
something Brahms liked to do. When Mozart moves into the unexpected
keys of D-flat major and G-flat major, Jasiński suggests
he is anticipating Chopin and Schubert. To strengthen his arguments,
he then sits down and plays corresponding passages by those
composers, from memory - an enviable feat! As before, he ends
the lecture with an equally impressive performance of the Sonata
K. 457.
There are no bonus materials or special features whether you
watch the DVD in Polish or you choose English subtitles. Jasiński
ends his lecture by suggesting that “humility is what
we need to make progress in the art of music-making.”
That is exactly what we experience watching this DVD. His love
for this music, as well as his ardent desire to share his understanding
of it, is contagious. For anyone studying Mozart’s pianos
works, watching this is a must.
David A. McConnell
Professor Andrzej Jasiński lecturing on and performing
Sonatas in C Major (K. 330) and C Minor (K. 457) 
[88.30] 