Track list:

Zwei Neue Kuriose Minuetten • Larghetto • I. Allegro Moderato • II. Andante con Variazione • I. Vivace • II. Adagio • IV. Andante con Variazione

After his death Joseph Martin Kraus (1756-1792) has, like many others, fallen under the historical shadow of Mozart. An almost exact contemporary, Kraus was hailed by nobody less than Joseph Haydn as Mozart’s equal in terms of creativity and genius.

Kraus received his musical education in several cities in Central Germany, his birth ground. In 1778 he emigrated to Sweden, where he became Vice- Kapellmeister at the court of Gustav III in 1781. In 1782 he embarked on a four-year grand tour of Europe, meeting with colleagues in Berlin, Vienna, Venice, Rome, Naples, Paris, and London, all the while observing in his copious correspondence the trends and sights of his day. In 1788 he became Kapellmeister at the court in Stockholm.

Trained as a violinist Kraus was nonetheless an excellent pianist. This new recording presents his complete output for the instrument, consisting of several shorter character pieces and two substantial piano sonatas, representing a variety and originality that is one of Kraus’s musical trademarks. The two sonatas, especially, are at the technical limits of the instrument, requiring both dexterity and interpretive ability, often foreshadowing piano music thirty years later (Beethoven!) in content and scope. • Costantino Mastroprimiano studied piano and chamber music with Michele Marvulli, Guido Agosti and Riccardo Brengola, and then moved his focus to the study of the fortepiano.

He recorded extensively for Brilliant Classics: the complete sonatas of Muzio Clementi (18 CDs) complete piano sonatas by Hummel (3 CDs) and a CD with piano music by Alkan, all of which received enthusiastic acclaim in the international press. On this recording he plays an 1775 Stein pianoforte.