The three new CDs sound well. The DG and the Philips offer exceptional ranges of orchestral colour and perhaps on account of that a little more character than the older (and now digitally remastered) Decca. My other general impression is that Ashkenazy, on Decca, was working with a slimmer Philharmonia than either Serkin (with the LSO) or Previn (with the Vienna Philharmonic). I liked his recording when it first appeared on LP and I still think it good. In both concertos he takes a moment or two to settle, in the C major spoiling his first solo by an eccentric over-elaboration of the fermata in bar 79; but there is steady illumination after that and the sovereign quality of the piano playing is a constant delight. Like all good Mozart players Ashkenazy knows how to make the piano sing, and he deploys a cantabile style like an ideally flexible voice. Sometimes I wish he would just raise it a bit and make stronger statements. His performances aren't bland, far from it, but Brendel in the C major Concerto (Philips) and Serkin in the G major will probably strike you as stronger personalities.
I wish there was more of a singing quality about Previn's recording of the G major and C minor. His manner is neat and cultivated but he plays as if on needle-points, with little variety of sound or touch. Edward Greenfield liked him better than I do. The restricted range of expression seems to me particularly disappointing in the slow movement of the G major Concerto, where the progress of this wonderful piece emerges as strangely uneventful, in spite of the lovely sound and the sensibility evident at any given moment. This is where Serkin is incomparable—and every bit as good, I think, in his most recent recording, with Abbado, as in the previous LP with Szell (now reissued on CBS Masterworks M3P39655, 9/85, in a collection of six Mozart concertos).
It has to be said, though, that in general Serkin's latest Mozart recordings for DG are not the equal of the best of his previous achievements. Not that they lack anything in intellectual control, which is an impressive as ever. Not a note is wasted. But in some quick movements, where one remembers ardour and technical brilliance giving a spellbinding musical urgency to the performances, it's disappointing to discover those qualities to be much less generously on offer than before. How could they be, with Serkin now in his eighties? The wonder is one misses so little. The same authority is there and I never feel Serkin is striving for something he can no longer achieve. But there are times—in the E flat Concerto, K271, for example, first movement—when a new quality of valedictory deliberation, though quite convincing, can't make one forget the brio of old; and the presto finale of this concerto, which should go like the wind, doesn't make its full effect when the tempo is so moderate. Again, when you listen to Serkin, Brendel and Ashkenazy in the first movement of K467 in C major, comparisons point up how much slower Serkin is. It is Brendel who reminds us that the maestoso marking so often associated with this movement isn't Mozart's own. Serkin's reading, by the side of the other two, sounds as if it could do with a touch of liberation.
Perhaps the special attraction of the recordings with Abbado lies in the combination of two such powerful personalities. It is the soloist, of course, who claims most of one's attention, but of all the conductors on the seven CDs I've been listening to, it is Abbado who contributes most to the profile and definition of the performances. In view of the number of pianists who like to do their own conducting in Mozart concertos these days, it's salutary to be reminded of what they can gain with the collaboration of a master-conductor. Abbado's excellence and the LSO's, are nicely reflected by the flawless balances and the quality of sound, and that is another plus the DG series.'