Let’s have no talk, please, of this being a crossover album. Both Corea and McFerrin take Mozart perfectly seriously and play him almost straight. The ‘almost’ is interesting. Corea quite often adds embellishments to the solo part (though not many, curiously, to the slow movement of K488, where the wide leaps of the melodic line have often been thought to imply some sort of filling-in). He also plays during orchestral tuttis, as Mozart may well have done, though by no means all of them. The cadenzas are his, not the expected Mozart (K488) or Beethoven (K466), and, as in his improvised flourishes elsewhere, he sees no reason to suppress elements of his own style (jazz with Latin roots) in them; they sound, incidentally, genuinely improvised. Most controversially of all, from the point of view of those inclined to cry ‘hands off!’ whenever jazz musicians approach Mozart, each concerto is preceded by a sort of preludizing duo-cadenza in which McFerrin also joins; his voice is a high, uncommonly pure countertenor.
I’ve probably said enough to put off those who are going to be put off, and I could add that by the highest standards Corea’s phrasing is occasionally rather lumpy, that his embellishments during tuttis can upstage the orchestra, and that although the size of the orchestra may be ‘authentic’ its smooth and rather dense sound is not. But these performances ask a number of useful questions about real authenticity. When did you last hear an improvised cadenza, in which (surely Mozart would have expected it?) something of the player’s own musical personality was obvious? Why, if it seems pretty likely that Mozart played during tuttis and added ornaments to solo lines, are ‘classical’ pianists so reluctant to do so? And if Mozart lovingly and respectfully translated Handel into the idiom of his own day, why not the occasional blue note or hint of flamenco in a cadenza? At their straightest these readings are a bit straight-faced, but they often communicate a fresh and genuine delight in the music, as do those preludes and the slightly more extensive Song for Amadeus: in what other style but their own should two jazz musicians pay homage to Mozart?'