The first thing you notice at the outset of the C major Concerto (K503) – in fact at the opening of each movement – is the exquisite shaping of the orchestral introduction. This is Jeremy Denk’s first Mozart recording (aside from a single sonata movement on his collection ‘c1300‑c2000’ – 3/19), although he has been performing the concertos for some time. The rapport with his accomplices in the St Paul Chamber Orchestra is accordingly a close one, and their sterling support frees Denk to embellish his lines with sometimes startling freedom.

Unlike Olga Pashchenko (albeit in a different concerto coupling – Alpha, 9/21), however, his liberties don’t pull the tempo around to the extent that the music is twisted out of shape. And while the recording balance may focus to a certain extent upon the piano, enough light is reflected on to the woodwinds that their characterful contributions are not obscured. It’s a rather different case in the D minor Concerto (K466), where the winds come across more subdued alongside a piano that is spotlit to a greater degree, so that even rumbling passagework in tuttis is brought to the fore. (There is also some audible pedal ‘thump’ in both concertos; rather more seriously, what I can only assume is an editing error excises a bar shortly before the cadenza of K466’s first movement at around 10'23".)

Nevertheless, Denk’s identification with this music is evident throughout. Perhaps the palate-cleansing A minor Rondo at the halfway point of the disc best encapsulates the finest points of these performances: a reading of conspicuous inwardness and intensity that distils an almost Schubertian poignancy. His cadenzas, too (presumably his own – they are not identified in the documentation as received), reflect his deeply personal response to each work. Denk is clearly a pianist with much to say in Mozart.