Sayaka Shoji: Mozart

The Strad Issue: April 2025

Description: A period-instrument Mozart sonata cycle sets off with purpose

Musicians: Sayaka Shoji (violin) Gianluca Cascioli (fortepiano)

Works: Mozart: Violin Sonatas: in G major K301/293a, B flat major K378/317d, B flat major K454

Catalogue number: ARCANA A575

In the first of their planned four-volume Mozart sonata cycle, long-time duo partners Sayaka Shoji and Gianluca Cascioli take the plunge into the realm of historical performance. Cascioli fully immerses himself in the relevant techniques, playing a McNulty/Anton Walter c.1805 fortepiano as if to the manner born. He executes all Mozart’s challenging passagework with technical precision, rhythmical buoyancy and crystal-clear articulation, particularly in K301, in which he is the dominant partner.

Shoji’s adaptation to period performance ventures only waist deep. Vestiges of her modern technical training remain, especially in her occasionally overcooked attack, her general vibrato usage and her sporadic choice of schmaltzy, anachronistic fingerings. Nevertheless, she largely succeeds in matching and commenting pertinently on Cascioli’s contributions in K301 and K378 and warms to her more equal role in K454.

She draws a sonorous tone from her gut-strung Stradivari (‘Recamier’, c.1729), conveying a beautiful cantabile line in K454’s richly expressive Andante. Both protagonists are alert and keenly attuned in the same sonata’s outer movements.

They add imaginative extempore ornamentation as appropriate in their refreshingly different readings of all three sonatas, along with unusual nuances and phrasing emphases, subtle rubato and a pleasingly varied tonal palette. Arcana’s recorded sound and balance are first-rate.

ROBIN STOWELL