This is another issue in Philips's Complete Mozart Edition, with 12 discs averaging 63 minutes and offering a comprehensive survey of one of the finest areas of the composer's output. The recordings involve five soloists, three conductors (but see below) and four orchestras, of which the last is directed by Ton Koopman from the harpsichord. They cover two decades, from Alfred Brendel's 1970 performances of the A major and G major Concertos, K414 and K453, to the three concertos after Johann Christian Bach, K107, as played by Koopman and his Amsterdam Baroque Ensemble (recorded in 1989). This sounds a mixed bag of artists and recordings, but the solo concertos are mostly in the safe hands of Brendel (and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields under Sir Neville Marriner), who is joined by Imogen Cooper in the Double Concertos in F major and E flat major. He is also the soloist in the two concert rondos.
The other soloists have less to do. Koopman and his Dutch ensemble play only the three miniature concertos of K107, while Ingrid Haebler performs Concertos Nos. 1–4 on a fortepiano with the Vienna Capella Academica directed by Eduard Melkus, and the Labeque sisters and Semyon Bychkov join forces with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in the Triple Concerto in F major, K242 which is on the second disc. Slightly confusingly, this last work is also the one that Brendel and Cooper play on the fourth CD in an arrangement for two pianos. William Kinderman's booklet essay hardly clarifies matters when he tells us that it was composed ''for the Countess of Lodron and her two daughters, originally in a setting for three pianos. One of the daughters had limited facility, and was offered a slight part not included in the present recording.'' I think this remark refers to the earlier 1986 Mozart concerto issue with just Brendel and Cooper; here we have K242 in both its versions.
The four Concertos Nos. 1–4 on the first CD are boyhood works of 1767, drawing upon the music of five other composers. Although in no way individual they go well enough and Haebler's fortepiano sounds agreeable and appropriate, while her playing style is energetic yet sensitive. The orchestra plays well, too, and the balance is satisfactory, though there is some noticeable background hiss in these analogue recordings from 1973 and one also cannot help hearing some odd clicks, e.g., at the start of the Andante staccato of the B flat major Concerto on track 5.
I wish I could find the Koopman account of the three concertos of K107 equally agreeable, but their recent digital recording shocks my ear—listen to the attack (in every sense of the word) at the start of the D major Concerto which begins the second CD: a sound with a kind of physical sizzle and sting to it that owes much to the close, sharp tone produced by the harpsichord and which I personally find thoroughly unpleasant. It takes some determination and endurance to sense the quality of performance behind such an aggressive noise (little other than forte emerges in these concertos), and the playing, too, appears (to be candid) both insensitive and unyielding—try the Minuet that ends K107/I, for example, and see if you can hear anything resembling a dance in it. The sound is also too reverberant, as witness the final chord of this movement. The beginning of both the following track and track 5 also emphasizes the edgy tone of Koopman's violins.
I did not much like the account of the Triple Concerto by the Labeque sisters, Bychkov and the BPO when I reviewed it last September. However, certainly the sound is pleasanter and the performance more stylish than in the works directed by Koopman which precede it on the same disc. Nevertheless, while the piano playing (on modern instruments) is vivid, it is also short on subtlety and charm (the rondo-minuet finale has fantasy, but is spiky-toned and does not quite cohere). To hear it done in a more elegant way and with rather warmer sound one only has to turn to Brendel, Cooper and Marriner.
It is a relief, indeed, to move on to Brendel for the remaining ten discs of this set. Occasionally one could wish that the orchestral sound was more cleanly focused (try the opening tutti of K175 to hear this), but the playing of all concerned has unfailing intelligence, and there is no lack of charm. At the same time Brendel never prettifies the music in the way that some artists do.
The booklet contains a substantial six-page essay by Brendel that offers a good deal of wisdom and illuminatingly explains his performance practice in many a telling phrase—e.g., ''A singing line and sensuous beauty, important as they may be in Mozart, are not, however, the sole sources of bliss''—and he rightly reminds us of the composer's nervous energy (he used to like drumming his fingers on the nearest chairback) and ''the living spirit, the heartbeat, the unsentimental warmth of his feeling''. Not for Brendel ''the cute Mozart, the perfumed Mozart, the permanently ecstatic Mozart'', even the incessantly poetic Mozart of players stuck ''in a hothouse in which no fresh air can enter... Let poetry be the spice, not the main course.'' He also suggests that the pianist in these works must pay heed to the style of good Mozart singers and string players so as to speak clearly and characterfully in articulated phrases, and argues that in contrast with Haydn ''the explorer'' Mozart was an architect like Beethoven, though a different one in that he worked more flexibly with more pliable material.
I have spent space apparently reviewing Brendel's essay, but will excuse myself by saying that the good points he makes in it are fully reflected in his playing. In fact, these are performances to give much pleasure and which can be lived with. One can only single out this or that movement which is especially fine—say, the poised and thoughtful slow movement of K238 and its buoyantly yet aristocratically witty finale, typical of these qualities as they are to be found (with appropriate different shadings and weightings) throughout the whole series of concertos. He can at times be a little on the plain side in the lyrical writing in slow movements, as in K365 and K413, but this reticence has its own kind of strength (notably in K467, K488 and K537) even if one may momentarily miss the quiet charm that Murray Perahia brings to such music.
The keyboard articulation deserves special praise, as does the pedalling, for the Brendel sound has depth and firmness yet remains delicately precise: for examples, listen to the Rondo in D major, or to K271 with its unconventional early solo entry, poignant Andantino and bouncy finale. There is delight, too, in such music as the sparkling finales of K456, K459 and K482, and the right kind of unforced drama in the minor-key Concertos, K466 and K491. The pianist's own cadenzas, of which there are several here, are without exception stylish and well proportioned.
The audience is pretty quiet in K503, recorded live at Strasbourg, though some between-movements coughs and rustles spill over into the start of the finale, and there is applause. In the two double concertos, Imogen Cooper (who studied with Brendel) proves an admirable partner, while in the series overall Marriner and the Academy are no less worthy of praise. Tempos are well judged, too (an important matter), not least in the last concerto of all, which is beautifully poised and spacious. All in all, therefore, 11 discs of the 12 that make up this mid-price Philips set represent fine value, and one doesn't have to play the one featuring the Ton Koopman performances.'