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Mozart’s comparative lack of intense focus on the violin extends to some of his sonatas. The sonatas K. 301-306, known collectively as the “Palatine” sonatas because of their dedication to Countess Elizabeth Auguste, Electress of Palatine and Bavaria, were actually presented by Mozart as sonatas for piano with violin. This was a not-uncommon form in 1778, when these sonatas were written, and it does not indicate that the piano dominates the violin to a significant degree – indeed, what it affirms is that matters are not the other way around, with the violin bearing the brunt of most of the material. Like the violin concertos in their solo-tutti balance, these six sonatas are all strongly focused on equality, with the piano and violin playing as partners and comrades, never as competitors.

Peter Sheppard Skærved and Daniel-Ben Pienaar, who are frequent collaborators even though they have not made a recording together before, are ideally matched in presenting these works on a new Athene CD. Neither tries to outdo the other, and neither tries to make these comparatively slight works greater than they are. The sonatas bear the numbers 18-23 in Mozart’s violin-and-piano sequence, which is not the clearest portion of his catalogue. The first five are in two movements – again, a form in favor at the time these pieces were written – and only the sixth, No. 23, K. 306, is a three-movement work. It is also the longest and most substantial of the group, but no deeper emotionally than the others. In many ways, the outlier among these sonatas is No. 21, K. 304, which is in E minor and is the only minor-key sonata that Mozart ever composed for the violin-and-piano combination. Again, though, the minor key does not point to any particular profundity of thought or emotion, as it would later do in the piano concertos – here it is simply a different way for Mozart to color the music for a pleasing effect.

These are intimate works pervaded by a sense of cordiality between the players – a sense of which Skærved and Pienaar are fully aware, and of which they take full advantage in these warm, congenial performances.