In January 1783, Mozart advertised in the Vienna press "the publication of three new, recently completed piano concertos," which could even be played with quartet accompaniment, thus enabling him to reach a wider public. He also wrote to his father, Leopold, to say they were "very brilliant and pleasing to the ear" and "between too easy and too difficult to play". They are performed here in impressive, indeed dazzling, style by Bezuidenhout, a master of the fortepiano, and the wonderful German period instrument orchestra, directed by violinist Gottfried von der Goltz.
After acoustic experiments with unusual arrangements of microphones and orchestra, it was decided to place the solo fortepiano keyboard in the centre, surrounded by strings and woodwind instruments (plus trumpets and timpani in K.415, the C major concerto.) This undoubtedly helped this disc to gain its 10-star rating by Gramophone magazine. The engineering has allowed the keyboard to dominate a lush, natural orchestral sound in which all the period instruments can be heard separately and distinctly, without sacrificing vivid string and woodwind textures.
As Wolfgang Mozart told his father, these three concertos show all their brilliance and please the ear.
"Here and there only connoisseurs will derive satisfaction from them — yet in such a way that the non-connoisseur will also be pleased, without knowing why", the composer had added. This excellent recording should gain this sort of unanimous approval from all listeners.
Any argument by those who might prefer the recorded sound with modern instruments becomes irrelevant when you hear brilliant performances like this.
Verdict: Superbly "pleasing to the ear".
- Geoff Adams
