Mao Fujita pf

Sony Classical 

These recordings come with a sweet story. The Japanese pianist Mao Fujita recalls being transfixed, when still in the kindergarten, by a recording of Horowitz's 1986 recital in the Great Hall of Moscow Conservatory, where Mozart's Piano Sonata K330 was part of the programme. That performance, he says, was what made him want to become a pianist. Fifteen years later he played in the same hall as a contestant in the Tchaikovsky Competition, choosing the same sonata as part of his programme and winning the silver medal. Last year he played all 18 sonatas from memory at the Verbier Festival, to universal acclaim.

Fujita may still be only 23, but he plays Mozart like a master. This set may be very different from the one Leonskaja released two years ago, but I have seldom listened to these sparkling works with such unalloyed pleasure. He catches the fire of the Allegro movements and communicates the grace of the Adagios; his approach has a luminous clarity throughout. My only quibble is with the slow variations in the sixth and 11th sonatas: these are too slow and stick out a mile. Otherwise the set is an outright triumph, and the biographical thoughts which Fujita appends in the liner notes seem spot-on.

For Fujita the seventh sonata reflects Mozart's excitement in 1777: ‘In the opening bars of K309 I can hear his feelings of this time, running away from Salzburg, being in love, laughing.’ The following year saw Mozart in Paris where he felt out of place and yearned for home. The central Andante of the eighth puts Fujita in mind of that time.

Fujita likes to think of Mozart improvising and wants to play these works with a hint of that freedom, but in truth he's very faithful to the score, sometimes adding discreet touches but never unbalancing the architecture. He has great freshness of attack, uses very little pedal and displays a wonderfully flexible touch. His rapid runs – almost détaché yet remarkably precise – are a delight. And he is a master of tone colour, awake to all the possibilities of piano – from honeyed tenderness to hushed awe, to bated breath – while possessing a large armoury of effects at the opposite end of the dynamic spectrum. His pauses are eloquently suggestive without being melodramatic, and he is free of all affectation.

I could not pick a favourite from among these 18 performances – each has its individual character and exerts its own particular charm. For martial splendour the Allegro maestoso of the eighth sonata is unrivalled, and for virtuosity the Allegro of the 13th, but for seekers after heart-on-sleeve lyricism, any Adagio here will do just fine.