Barenboim's way with Mozart's piano concertos is well known and has rightly won praise: he imparts energy and a feeling of well-being to the music by means of fine pianism and a firm command of the orchestral forces which he leads from the keyboard, in this case the English Chamber Orchestra in good form. There is a rapport here and a clear sense of shared purpose: so far, so good. It is only when one looks for extra sensitivity that one can at times be disappointed. Perhaps the comment is paradoxical, since Barenboim can invest a phrase with enormous significance, but when this happens, as in some of the gentler music or in slow movements, the effect can at times be of a certain soloistic narcissism expressed in rubato or tonal shading, rather than of a really natural response to the music. I do not always feel that the subtler shades of musical statement are reflected in the playing style: in many passages of the earlier concertos, particularly, it could all be thought to sound too alike. Somehow, too, we are more conscious with Barenboim than with some other pianists that we are listening to a modern concert grand rather than the kind of instrument for which Mozart composed, and the same applies to the orchestra whose sound is surely over-rich.
This already sounds more than a little grudging. Let it stand, but let me add also that it will be a hard-hearted listener who cannot respond overall to deft and often sensitive performances that move with conviction throughout these seven concertos. The recordings are by no means new (K66 goes back almost 20 years) but they are agreeable despite a degree of background and a closeness that can rob us of pianissimo; however, as against that we may bear in mind that the first of these three discs offers quite astonishing value with three concertos and 75 minutes of music, while the other two, each with two more substantial concertos, are not far behind in duration at 63 and 65 minutes respectively.
I particularly enjoyed the C major Concerto, K 15, on the first of these Barenboim CDs, for its fresh vitality in the outer movements. The Andante too strikes the right blend of elegance and gravity—though at a cadence at the 1'30'' point of this movement and also in the Adagio section of the finale (6'18'') I seem to hear a positively Mahlerian C' de profundis from a double-bass, i.e. the note a major third below its standard bottom note which may come from a five-string instrument but can hardly be authentic in Mozart, though I must confess it sounds effective! But indeed so does most of the music in these performances. Some have found the tempo chosen here for the first movement in the G major Concerto, K453, over-rapid, but I think it's acceptable if one puts aside memories of other more measured accounts. The big finale of the Coronation Concerto is especially well shaped. The self-consciously dramatic D minor, K466 is more controversial, and Beethoven's chunkily out-of-style cadenza to the first movement arranged by Edwin Fischer is something I could do without, as is the soloist's own to the finale. The C minor, K491, albeit perhaps larger than life, romanticized beyond what it needs, is rather more satisfying.
On to Ashkenazy in these two minor-key concertos, and a reissue of his 1968 recording of K466 together with a more recent (May 1979) one of K491. Both performances are good and the account of the D minor (again with the Beethoven first-movement cadenza) pleases me more than Barenboim's, though some might find its restraint less thrilling the powerful C minor is also convincingly put across. The original analogue recordings were good and the CD transfers are successful. In all this is quite a bargain at mid price. In the same concertos, Clara Haskil and Markevitch on Philips are not newly recorded (she died suddenly in 1960 within weeks of these performances), but the sound is quite satisfying and the playing of both soloist and (biggish) orchestra has a poise and distinction of its own at a brisker overall pace than the other pianists. But the Ashkenazy is specially good value.'