“I think a lot of people think that virtuosity on the piano means playing a lot of hard chords and notes really really fast while sweating a lot and looking really action packed about it. Was Wolfgang Mozart a virtuosic composer? I think so, but certainly on his own terms. His sense of virtuosity more often has to do with the expertise of his composition, how gets from one key area to another, or how he mixes the thematic motifs of his piece. In this particular final movement from his F major Piano Sonata, K. 332, he is writing something that’s really hard to play, with a lot of fast notes played in a short space of time. But for Mozart, the idea that you sweat is very unappealing. One should look perfectly calm and exceedingly nonchalant while doing it. I often tell my own students when they’re playing a piece like this that they should imagine driving a race car in Monte Carlo at approximately 260 miles per hour while balancing a cigarette in a cigarette holder in one hand and a perfectly made martini in the other, steering with their left foot.”
Pianist Sara Davis Buechner will be performing the entire cycle of Mozart Piano Sonatas at Alti Hall in Kyoto, Japan in a series of four recitals in September 2018. For more information, visit http://saradavisbuechner.com/schedule/