Mozart: Complete Piano Sonatas
Elisabeth Leonskaja (piano) (Warner)
(scroll down for English review)
不單是一次過推出的莫扎特鋼琴奏鳴曲全集，灌錄時也同樣快手，去年一月錄了五日，然後三月再錄一日便完成了六個半小時的音樂。列翁絲卡雅這套全集，勝在一切從簡，我覺得可以不用「詮釋」這個詞，乾脆叫「演奏」就夠。她用的音量、音色、觸感的幅度表面上頗窄，但不代表無視表情或者其他指示，而是將這些指示當成瞬間的效果，做了，就回到基本的彈法之中。就是有這種基本和瞬間的差別，反而比太刻意追求層次更容易見到，莫扎特已經把他想要的效果清楚寫了，毋須加鹽加醋。
不過也不是任何人，光是照書直說就能彈到列翁絲卡雅那樣。她有時會令我覺得，莫扎特這些奏鳴曲彷彿就是弦樂四重奏的雛型，右手是兩支小提琴、或者是女高音及女低音聲部，左手則是中提琴及大提琴，或者男高音及男低音那樣。列翁絲卡雅很容易就區分到不同聲部的音色，尤其是高音聲部，特別明亮，就猶如小提琴或人聲在歌唱。
作品編號三百字頭的那些，她彈得最有交響感，但去到五百字頭的奏鳴曲，則有返樸歸真的追求，即使我覺得她在那些奏鳴曲中速度偏慢，但至少《簡單奏鳴曲》（軌48至50）已令我覺得比任何貝多芬後期奏鳴曲更加深邃。
Made in just six days of sessions, Elisabeth Leonskaja’s complete recordings of Mozart piano sonatas have this effortless quality. I feel that the word “interpretation” should be replaced by “performance” when describing her Mozart. Leonskaja’s range of volume, timbre and articulation was ostensibly narrow but that didn’t mean she overlooked the indications. Instead she treated them as interrupting effects to the overall picture, she did the fortes, sforzandos and staccatos then went back to the default playing. That way she showed that Mozart had already marked what he wanted in the score and performers need not be fuzzy.
At times Leonskaja gave me the impression that these sonatas are actually string quartets in disguise. Violins on the right hand, and the viola and cello on left hand; or soprano and alto on the right, tenor and bass on the left. She was able to conjure a very bright sound on the soprano part and made it soar like a singer.
The K.300-something sonatas were played with a symphonic tonal palette, but the 500-something sonatas were dominated with a quest of simplicity. Leonskaja might have taken the last sonatas too slowly, but her Sonata facile (tracks 48-50) was as profound as a Beethoven late sonata, if not more so.