Anyone embarking on Mozart's piano concertos might be expected to begin with some of the more straightforward ones, perhaps those dating from 1784 (K449 to 459) or even the group from 1782 (K413-15). Not so the fortepianist Melvyn Tan, who dives in at the deep end with two of the most formidable and emotionally demanding of the lot. Or possibly he does not see it that way: for this is in a sense a revisionist view of these concertos, one that favours a less serious, less Germanic approach to the music and treats them as brilliant and decorative pieces. Tan's playing is certainly both brilliant and decorative, and much else: it is rhythmically ebullient, it is elegant in manner and it has a graceful, self-consciously artful quality that is in many ways beguiling.
The reader who finds this appealing should perhaps read no further, except to note that the orchestral playing is of high quality, on period instruments, with some very fine woodwind solo work and some slightly quirky dynamic shapings from Roger Norrington in the tuttis, which have his customary energy and (in the first movements especially) hint of the demonic. I do feel, however, that Tan's view of the concertos, if seductive in a sense, is a seriously incomplete one. In the C minor work the pianism does not seem to be on a scale compatible with the musical invention: it makes the first movement ornamental or plaintive where it ought to be searching by rejecting the sturdy or forthright gestures from the expressive vocabulary, and prettifies the slow movement (the tempo is unusually quick, but that is not of itself the trouble) by treating Mozart's decorative figuration as decorative and nothing else. I found more to enjoy in the finale, though here too the decisive gesture is wanting; and I was not persuaded by the jauntiness of the A flat variation (the fourth, the one with prominent clarinets) or the gentle nostalgia of the 6/8 final one—surely the concerto is of tougher mettle than this.
There is more in K503 that I could enjoy, possibly because the work itself has a more stylized approach to expression and there is accordingly less conflict. Certainly Tan's reticent and unassertive manner allows the piano to take its place comfortably within the orchestral texture, aided by a recording that by no means highlights it. But I do find the bigness of the tuttis belied by the miniaturism of the piano playing and Tan's tendency—notable in all the movements but perhaps most striking here—to add decoration that is frilly rather than expressively functional. This says something about his view of Mozart. There is some exquisite playing in the Andante, yet the weight of the music, its gravitas, is not clear. The finale is gracefully and amiably played, but some of the triplets are snatched and again the larger musical gestures carry insufficient force.
I hope that, in spite of the reservations I have expressed, readers interested in the interpretation of Mozart's piano concertos will try this disc, for it does in some degree present an alternative view of the works, and we should be open to the ideas reached by sensitive musicians playing on instruments of the kind that Mozart knew. There is certainly a lot to admire here. Tan plays his own cadenzas (Mozart wrote none for these works), which show some grasp of Mozart's figuration and the way he might work his themes but less of his harmonic style and particularly his handling of key changes.'