In his day Gieseking had few peers as a Mozartian or as an interpreter of Debussy and Ravel. Of his immediate contemporaries only Casadesus, four years his junior, was a comparable stylist and only Schnabel and Edwin Fischer, of a slightly older generation and different tradition, enjoyed a greater renown. But while the Schnabel and Fischer versions of the Mozart concertos have been in and out of the catalogue here and on the continent, these Gieseking performances have maintained a lower profile. I do not recall encountering the D minor and C major Concertos that he recorded with Hans Rosbaud on subsequent reissues, though the Piano and Wind Quintet did appear in France coupled with the Beethoven Wind Quintet on an EMI References LP.
There is a luminous purity of tone in the D minor Concerto and great beauty of articulation in Gieseking's calm, serene performance of the A major with Karajan. In the D minor he plays the Beethoven cadenzas and in the C major his own. In the A major and C minor Concertos he plays the Hummel. Not everyone admired Gieseking at
this period: Andrew Porter writing in these columns thought the A major routine, while Jeremy Noble preferred Solomon's account of the C minor (newly restored to circulation by EMI—3/91) for its greater immediacy and found Gieseking ''rather impersonal''. Although Casadesus brought a darker colouring to it, there is much about Gieseking's refinement and restraint that I admire.
The Philharmonia wind players are in wonderful form here and their principals are quite stunning in the Piano and Wind Quintet, which has enjoyed classic status ever since its first release, despite the rather unspacious acoustic. There have been wonderful performances of this piece in recent years from Perahia (CBS, 12/86), Lupu (Decca, 12/86) and others, but even if you have them you should not overlook this account. There is not much difference, save the more silent surface, between the LP and CD, although the new transfer is free from the 'dried-out' quality of timbre sometimes encountered in digital remastering. Throughout, Gieseking is far more distinctive and memorable than in his often routine set of the complete solo keyboard music on which he embarked not long afterwards. The insert-note includes an apology for an electric hum present in the Concertos, K488 and 503, the two he recorded in 1953 with Rosbaud, but it is barely audible and certainly not obtrusive, and I cannot imagine any musical enthusiast being put off such distinguished playing on this count.'