"Mozart is the reason I became a musician," reveals Emmanuel Pahud. At age four, the Swiss flute virtuoso fell in love with a Mozart flute concerto he heard his neighbor playing – and he wanted to be able to play it himself. Mozart's works have been inseparable from the 2024 Léonie Sonning Music Prize winner ever since, and his fascination has only grown over the years. "When I play his compositions today," Pahud admits, "I feel a connection between body and soul as I breathe in and out. These emotions that arise from breathing while playing – for me, only Mozart can do that, it's unique. He treats instruments like the human voice." Because Mozart's flute concertos are limited, however, the composer's violin sonatas have been transcribed, and a selection of them can now be found on Emmanuel Pahud's album "Mozart Stories." Transcriptions of his violin sonatas for flute were already published during the composer's lifetime. In his own transcription, Emmanuel Pahud ensures that Mozart's handwriting is preserved. The flutist has frequently included these sonatas in his programs when performing with his long-time piano partner Éric Le Sage. For this album, Pahud has chosen works that illustrate the spectrum of Mozart's expressive possibilities: While the Sonata in E minor was composed on the night Mozart's mother was dying and the composition contains rage and sorrow, the Sonata in C major speaks of pure champagne-like bliss. And in the sonata in G, there's even a sense of perfection.