Mozart: The Great Piano Concertos, Vol. 1

Mozart is great!

Mozart is surely one of the greatest composers ever, and the performances of his works were well done. I plan to get some more of his works in the future, but I will pay more attention as to who is performing the work. October 11, 2007

Fabulous

Consistently clean and brilliant performances that never fail to capture the spirit of the compositions. September 13, 2007

cherry picking

Pity Alfred Brendel, Neville Marriner, and the incomparable Academy of St Martin in the Fields having to play this luscious span of concertos from the sweet spot of Mozart's oeuvre.

If there is sweeter music in the universe, it must lie at the depths of the sea or some equally inaccessible place, far from eyes and ears that could compare it to Mozart's piano concertos no. 19-24.

Mozart's piano concerti, perhaps more than those of any other composer, shape the solo instrument's phrasing so that its entrances and exits vis-à-vis the orchestral score are nearly seamless. Brendel and his supporting cast perform this aspect of the music as well as can be done.

In the stellar Philips Classics 'Duo' series, this recording may well reign supreme. It's as good as it gets. February 15, 2007

Brendel and Marriner play Mozart at a bargain price

Philip's two double-CD sets of Alfred Brendel and Neville Marriner performing a total of ten of Mozart's great piano concertos, plus two rondos for piano and orchestra, must rate as one of the best of many bargains available in their "2 for 1" series. The four CDs add up to close to five hours of music, most of it essential listening for anyone interested in Mozart, great piano music, and great concertos.

This first of the two sets contains four indisputable masterpieces. In the stormy D minor Concerto K. 466, Brendel springs a mild surprise by playing his own cadenzas rather than Beethoven's, the ones most often used. I must confess to preferring Beethoven's unstylish but dramatic and imaginative cadenza to the first movement, but otherwise the performance is beyond reproach. Brendel adds some discreet and entirely appropriate ornamentation to the many repetitions of the second movement's main theme. The Olympian C major K. 467, with its incomparably beautiful slow movement, also receives some much-needed decoration: here the cadenzas are by Radu Lupu and are a bit quirkier than necessary. Although the soloist's tone and phrasing in the wistful K. 488 are ravishing in the first two movements, the starker phrases of the F-sharp minor Adagio are better left undecorated--for once Brendel's practically unerring sense of propriety in added ornamentation goes slightly off. In my opinion the best of a superb set of performances is that of the C minor, K. 491: Brendel and Marriner catch every nuance of tragedy while never slighting the grace of the music--the problem of writing an appropriate first-movement cadenza, difficult since Mozart left none of his own, is brilliantly solved here by the soloist.

Although in a set billed as Mozart's "Great Piano Concertos" I might have opted, narrowly, for including K. 453 in G major over K. 459, it cannot be denied that all involved seem perfectly attuned to the quicksilver energy and unexpected contrapuntal intricacies of the F major work. The two additional rondo movements, one a lightweight replacement for the original finale of Mozart's very first original piano concerto, the other a possible alternate finale to his earlier A major Concerto K. 414, are a delightful bonus. Incidentally, although the splitting of K. 488 across two generously filled CDs is an annoyance, timing restrictions would not have permitted cramming three complete concertos onto one CD as another review suggests. August 18, 2006

Mozart: The Great Piano Concertos, Vol. 1 Alfred Brendel

Nice interpretation of Mozart's piano concerto. July 10, 2006

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