In many respects, Angela Hewitt’s solo Mozart recordings represent a modern-day parallel to Walter Gieseking’s 1953 EMI cycle. Her playing is characterised by rhythmic steadiness and symmetry, uniformity in regard to repeated notes, and the most evenly balanced chords on the planet. Tone colour, nuance and articulation result from meticulous fingerwork and balances between the hands, with scant aid from the sustain pedal. Her dynamic schemes appear to be well worked out in advance, with each trill, ornament and embellishment calibrated to the proverbial nines. If you want Mozart from an Apollonian vantage point, with spotless surfaces and impeccable proportions, Hewitt is your ideal pianist.

Yet for all Hewitt’s classical reserve and steadfast control, she is not overawed by the music in the manner of the boringly reverential Carl Seemann cycle (DG) or Ingrid Haebler’s Philips recordings. Both the C minor and D minor Fantasias (K396 and 397) stand out for Hewitt’s radiant, full-bodied tone and intelligently dramatic pacing, where the timbral diversity of her beloved Fazioli grand comes into its own. If the Allegro maestoso of the A minor Sonata, K310, sounds unduly controlled and foursquare next to András Schiff’s brisker urgency and vocal orientation, the Allegro rondeau of the D major, K311, comes to witty life by way of Hewitt’s varied octave appoggiaturas and gently galloping lilt. While the opening Allegro of the C major, K330, is not the most spontaneously phrased tool in the shed, the finale abounds with élan and sparkle.

In her customarily informative booklet notes, Hewitt cogently lays out her reasons for taking the Allegro assai of the F major K332 more deliberately than usual, yet I miss the unbuttoned joy conveyed in more conventional performances; indeed, here the 88-year-old Earl Wild (Ivory Classics) sounds like the younger pianist by comparison! But no complaints regarding Hewitt’s unpressured fluency and transparent purity in the B flat Sonata, K333. The first-movement variations of the A major K331 are all of a unified piece, while Hewitt’s canny accentuation in the Rondo alla turca restores some of the rough edges and harmonic bite that most pianists ignore. Hewitt observes all repeats but rarely varies them, whereas my reference Roberto Prosseda (Decca) and Robert Levin (DHM or ECM, 11/22) Mozart cycles thrive on improvisatory prowess and living dangerously. Thanks to Hewitt’s longtime producer Ludger Böckenhoff, Hyperion’s sound does full justice to Hewitt’s artistry.