The sonatas featured on this album were composed during a pivotal stage in Western music history, when the two musicians, soloist and keyboardist, were treated as essentially
equal, a relationship which lends itself to a duo of mandolin and piano. In
Mozart’s mature violin sonatas the sense of equality enables this pairing to flourish; the mandolin naturally lends itself to decorating the keyboard part, but in these works it is also given aural space in which to come to the fore. The mandolin shares the tuning of the violin, allowing it to adapt effortlessly to this repertoire.
Mozart himself was familiar with the instrument: mandolin serenades became a fashionable feature in the operas of
Mozart’s era, including his own Don Giovanni, in which it is given a solo during the canzonetta, ‘Deh, vieni alla finestra’.
