MOZART: COMPLETE PIANO SONATAS. Daniel Barenboim, piano....

MOZART: COMPLETE PIANO SONATAS. Daniel Barenboim, piano. Angel Compact Discs CDS 7 47336 8. These six CDs contain more than six hours of music with the final CD holding more than 72 minutes (the Sonatas in F, K. 533; in C, K. 545; in B-flat, K. 570, and in D, K. 576). Quite an achievement. If you like your Mozart crisp and precise, Barenboim will not disappoint. That is not to say he isn’t expressive--from the moving middle movement of the B-Flat Sonata to the stately power of the Fantasy in C to the sprightly A-major sonata. But even computers can produce varied and interesting programs. There is no sense of continuity here, no sense of flow, no music that seems to exist as a seamless whole. Every phrase seems to be dissected, analyzed, reproduced perfectly--some might say mechanically. The clean, sharp-edged sound adds to the metallic quality of the performance. Still, this is a tour-de-force of modern piano playing.