MOZART: Piano Works 1 Kun-Woo Paik

• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 - 1791): Fantasia in D Minor, K. 397:
• 1Mozart: Fantasia in D Minor, K. 39705:57
• Rondo in D Major, K. 485:
• 2Mozart: Rondo in D Major, K. 48506:56
• Piano Sonata No. 12 in F Major, K. 332:
• 3Mozart: Piano Sonata No. 12 in F Major, K. 332: I. Allegro07:14
• 4Mozart: Piano Sonata No. 12 in F Major, K. 332: II. Adagio05:23
• 5Mozart: Piano Sonata No. 12 in F Major, K. 332: III. Allegro assai07:27
• Adagio in B Minor, K. 540:
• 6Mozart: Adagio in B Minor, K. 54010:25
• Mozart: Gigue in G Major, K. 574:
• 7Mozart: Gigue in G Major, K. 57401:40
• Piano Sonata No. 16 in C Major, K. 545 "Sonata facile":
• 8Mozart: Piano Sonata No. 16 in C Major, K. 545 "Sonata facile": I. Allegro03:25
• 9Mozart: Piano Sonata No. 16 in C Major, K. 545 "Sonata facile": II. Andante04:32
• 10Mozart: Piano Sonata No. 16 in C Major, K. 545 "Sonata facile": III. Rondo. Allegretto01:36
• Prelude & Fugue in C Major, K. 394:
• 11Mozart: Prelude & Fugue in C Major, K. 394: I. Prelude04:36
• 12Mozart: Prelude & Fugue in C Major, K. 394: II. Fugue05:13
• Total Runtime01:04:24

Info for MOZART: Piano Works 1

“Mozart: Piano Works 1” is the first part in the 78-year-old musician’s Mozart trilogy project. Paik has never before recorded Mozart in his 68-year career.

The studio album reflects “a child’s innocence,” Universal Music Group said in a press release.

Mozart’s pieces are extremely different,” Paik was quoted as saying by Universal Music. “After much consideration about how I was going to reinterpret them, I found that a child’s innocence is what makes Mozart’s music what it is.”

He quoted the words of Austrian-American classical pianist Artur Schnabel (1882-1951), that playing Mozart’s music is too easy for a child but too difficult for an adult.

Even the album cover for “Mozart: Piano Works 1” is a portrait of Paik drawn by a child, which was selected through a contest.

The album is comprised of Mozart’s compositions like "Fantasia in D Minor, K. 397," "Rondo in D Major, K. 485" and "Piano Sonata No. 12 in F Major, K. 332."

Kun Woo Paik was born in Seoul. He gave his first concert, aged 10, with the Korean National Orchestra, playing Edvard Grieg's Piano Concerto. In the following years he performed many important works in Korea, including several premieres such as Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. Later he studied in New York, London, and in Italy with Rosina Lhevinne, Ilona Kabos, Guido Agosti and Wilhelm Kempff. Kun Woo Paik is also a laureate of the Naumburg and Busoni International Piano Competitions.

Kun Woo Paik, piano

Kun-Woo Paik
made his debut at age ten performing Grieg’s Piano Concerto with the Korean National Orchestra. At 15 he moved to New York to study with Rosina Lhévinne at The Juilliard School, and he also studied in London, with Ilona Kabos, and in Italy, with Guido Agosti and Wilhelm Kempff. His international career took off following his first New York appearance, performing Ravel’s complete piano works at Lincoln Center, as well as his orchestral debut at Carnegie Hall. He has since collaborated with conductors including Zubin Mehta, Lorin Maazel, Mariss Jansons, Long Yu, Neville Marriner, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Jiří Bĕlohlávek, Vladimir Jurowski, Dmitri Kitayenko, Paavo Järvi, Iván Fischer, and Krzysztof Penderecki (performing his new piano concerto under his direction). He has performed with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra (1987’s Last Night of the Proms), Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre National de France, Berliner Symphoniker, Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI, Warsaw Philharmonic, and English Chamber Orchestra.

Kun Woo Paik’s recordings include works by Scriabin, Liszt, and Musorgsky, as well as the Rachmaninoff piano concerto cycle for BMG. His recording of the complete Prokofiev piano concertos received France’s Diapason d’Or 1993 and Nouvelle Académie du Disque awards. As an exclusive Decca artist, he recorded Busoni’s transcriptions of works by J.S. Bach, Fauré’s piano works (which won all the major prizes in France), and Chopin’s complete works for piano and orchestra (with Antoni Wit and the Warsaw Philharmonic); in 2005 he began a project to record all 32 Beethoven piano sonatas.

Mr. Paik’s recent engagements include a Carnegie Hall recital, a performance at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic and Yuri Temirkanov, the complete Rachmaninoff concerto cycle in St. Petersburg, and returns to the New Japan Philharmonic, China Philharmonic, Shanghai Philharmonic, and Bergen Philharmonic. He has also given recitals in France, Italy, and Spain.

Kun Woo Paik, who lives in Paris, was made a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Government in 2002.

This album contains no booklet.