Nearly a year ago Rudolf Serkin, in his eightieth year, was featured as soloist with the LSO under Claudio Abbado, for the first time in some 25 years, in a recording of Mozart piano concertos (K414 in A and K466 in D minor—DG 2532 053, 10/82), a field in which he had, since the 1930s, displayed an unerring sense of style. This record is the third in the new DG series (the second coupled K271 in E flat with K453 in G—2732 060, 1/83) and is notable for the fact that it is devoted to two concertos which, so far as I am aware, Serkin has never recorded before, although he must surely have given many concert performances of both of them.
Both concertos prove, once more, that Serkin's playing has lost nothing of its individuality and penetration. The more successful of the two is perhaps K467, with a spacious and at times (as in the piano's second theme), lingering, almost valedictory, account of the grand first movement; a most eloquent Andante; and a spirited finale, full of character and temperament. In K488 both outer movements strike me as being a shade too reflective and lacking in momentum (in the finale the piano tone is occasionally hard, and the ensemble is not always faultless), whereas the Adagio is, again, beautifully shaped and phrased, even though Serkin makes no attempt to embellish the sometimes very bare solo line. In this concerto he rightly plays Mozart's own first movement cadenza; in K467 (for which the composer left no written-out cadenzas) he plays his own, which are tasteful and succinct, as well as providing appropriate cadential flourishes where they are needed in both fast movements. Abbado and the LSO provide distinguished support and DG a mellow recording which gives the winds the prominence they need but do not always receive, and which also picks up a few of the great pianist's vocal contributions.
As with the two earlier issues, I feel that comparisons are largely irrelevant: If you admire Serkin you will get the record anyway. Ilona Vered's Decca recording of the same two concertos offers a stimulating and very different alternative: often brilliant, sometimes a bit hard-driven, rarely 'feminine', except in the slow movements, where she is very slow, and rather'dreamy'. There are plenty of excellent alternative versions of both concertos differently coupled, of which I would mention Ashkenazy in K467 on Decca (with K453 in G) and Brendel on Philips (with K450 in B flat), the former aristocratic and fastidious, the latter intellectual and provocative; and in K488 Ashkenazy, again on Decca (with K595 in B flat), and Ian Hobson on Classics for Pleasure (with K491 in C minor), the one characteristically perceptive and sensitive, the other remarkable for its freshness and vitality. All are good in their differeng ways, and I am sure that all of them would join in welcoming Serkin's long overdue coupling of both concertos.'