This
is the sixth recording by Santa Barbara-based pianist Zeynep
Ucbasaran. I have reviewed them all for MusicWeb and have found
her work, developing from a slightly timid first offering, increasingly
interesting. This, her second Mozart disc, seems to me to represent
a further step along the line (link
to previous Mozart review).
Zeynep
– since her first name appears everywhere in capitals and her
second in small letters I shall gratefully take the hint to
use this more easily remembered first name – has gathered together
three of Mozart’s more anomalous sonatas. The F major is a composite
work, two late movements combined for publication with a revised
version of an earlier Rondo. Still, the three movements seem
to fit. The E flat is the only Mozart sonata to begin with a
full-scale slow movement. The Adagio-Minuet-Finale pattern was
more likely in Haydn, but it draws from Mozart one of the most
beautiful of his earlier slow movements. The D major is the
only Mozart sonata which ends with a set of variations. The
sheer length of this movement – almost 17 minutes in this by
no means slow performance – has discouraged performers from
programming a work which hogs half the programme. They may also
have been puzzled by the central “Rondeau en Polonaise” which
is rather static and over-ornate.
Zeynep’s
playing has always been unfailingly musical, but I find more
temperament here than previously. The recording itself is big
and bold and transferred at a rather high level, creating an
initial impression of a degree of aggressiveness. Certainly,
Zeynep makes the most of every piano/forte contrast, but once
I had attuned to this I found it all to the good in Mozart works
that need a degree of sales-talk. If you prefer a more Olympian,
sublime approach you may prefer the late Haebler cycle on Denon
or, as this is not easy to obtain, de Larrocha on RCA may be
a fair substitute. I might prefer this approach in the calm
opening Adagio of K.282 where Zeynep’s staccato left-hand semiquavers
(16th notes) were not much to my taste, but elsewhere
I appreciated the immediacy of communication Zeynep finds. The
first two movements of the F major sonata get an emotional weight
they can easily bear.
Zeynep
is signally successful in the long variation movement of the
D major work. If Haebler tries to disguise the length by making
it as simply beautiful as possible, Zeynep goes one better by
making it all as interesting as possible. Without distortion,
she finds maximum characterization in each variation, at times
making them seem blueprints for some of Beethoven’s Bagatelles.
The Adagio variation is played with deep feeling. For once I
reached the end of this movement feeling that the prospect of
hearing it again would be welcome. It was at this point that
I realized that the gifted player of the earlier records is
developing into a pianist of some stature. I wonder if she might
now record some of the Mozart concertos?
An
excellent recommendation, then, for three of Mozart’s rarer
sonatas played with real conviction.
Christopher
Howell
Zeynep Ucbasaran
(piano)
