Mozart Piano Concertos Nos. 22 & 27

Record and Artist Details

Composer or Director: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Label: EMI

Media Format: CD or Download

Media Runtime: 62

Mastering:

DDD

Catalogue Number: 747432-2

Tracks:

Composition Artist Credit
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 24 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer
Christian Zacharias, Piano
Günter Wand, Conductor
North German Radio Symphony Orchestra
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 27 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer
Christian Zacharias, Piano
Günter Wand, Conductor
North German Radio Symphony Orchestra
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer
The sound here is very little different from that which I heard on LP. Perhaps the middle range has a little more warmth, but quality and balance are good in both formats, though there is occasional faint background clicking suggesting woodwind keywork. The playing is both intelligent and attractive and my only reservation is the perhaps overdone emphasis on a fierce/gentle mood contrast between orchestra and soloist in the first movement of K491. Ashkenazy on Decca is disappointingly unelectric in this movement, and rather staid in the Larghetto also, while his own cadenza for the first movement seems heavy compared to that of the younger pianist. Zacharias is perhaps over-relaxed in the first two movements of K595, but otherwise convincing and elegant, and the finale is a delight. Barenboim (EMI) sounds a trifle obese in this concerto, with ponderous sound and delivery, and I find his finale prettified to some extent. Curzon on Decca too is rather solemn, for all the individual beauties of his account, while Serkin and Abbado on DG are awkwardly stiff and indeed admirers of this fine pianist may be disappointed by this performance, which also has various murmurs and other sounds along with the music.'

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