The four concertos recorded here are on a decidedly higher level that those on the companion disc (2/94), containing Nos. 2, 3, 4 and 6 of Paisiello's concertos. Perhaps this has something to do with the patrons for which the pieces were written and their pianistic abilities. The actual invention is still on the thin side, but Concerto No. 1 in C, for a lady-in-waiting to Catherine the Great, is quite a substantial piece, and an enjoyable one too, with a slow movement of warmth and fluency and a finale with a delightfully jaunty theme.
Professor Michael Robinson's note refers to Paisiello's own ''short, primitive'' cadenza for the first movement, but the one here, by G. Donati, is long and sophisticated. The other three concertos are from the Naples set, written for the princess who became queen of Spain (though not, probably, for her to play). One, No. 8, is a big and spacious piece in C major, with a slow movement including some genuinely expressive piano writing and an expansive rondo. The one in A too touches on a vein of pathos in the Larghetto and the finale is an amiably witty rondo; with the D major work I was more conscious of the routine nature of the ideas and the rather cadence-ridden idiom, but Paisiello was certainly a fluent and accomplished composer and the music is never anything but professional and adept.
The music is, then, a little thin; but the performances here by Mariaclara Monetti are very affectionate, often gently expressive, and always neat and crisp, with some happy details of timing here and there. The curious reader should certainly consider this disc, with the insights it offers into Italian instrumental music of the classical era and the perspective it provides on the more familiar piano concerto repertory—by which I mean, of course, the works of Mozart.'