Turkish-born, American-resident pianist
Zeynep Ucbasaran has gained attention for her explosive, percussive, mercurial performances of Liszt's music. The question is whether those are good qualities for Mozart, for they make the transition to her readings of music by that composer. Mozart's minor-key fantasias, which she has performed in the past, can stand up to such treatment, but here she takes on two early Mozart sonatas and one, the Piano Sonata in F major, K 533 (with the K. 494 rondo attached as finale), that represents the most spectacular keyboard manifestation of the composer's encounter with Baroque musical procedures. The results can't be called uneven, for
Ucbasaran's approach is consistently applied, and the music keeps its hard edge throughout. They will, however, be very much a matter of individual preference.
Ucbasaran's ancestor in this kind of Mozart performance is another female pianist,
Alicia de Larrocha, but
Ucbasaran goes even farther in the direction of sharp dynamic contrasts with sudden percussive emphasis of individual features. Despite its vast distance from any intentions Mozart might have had,
Ucbasaran's performance does borrow a page from the fortepianists' book: she is sparse in her use of the pedal. The overall effect is spare, hard, and brilliant. Her approach probably works best in the Sonata in D major, K. 284, where the muscular architecture of the big variation finale is convincingly amplified by
Ucbasaran's style. That style may likewise be least applicable to the K. 533 sonata, where the details of Mozart's ingenious fusion of frilly galant melody and academic counterpoint in the marvelous opening movement tend to get lost under the pressure of
Ucbasaran's intensity. The sound environment of Abravanel Hall in Santa Barbara, CA, is well-suited to what
Ucbasaran is trying to do here, and it poses no obstacle for the listener trying to decide whether this Mozart is to his or her taste.