BaL 9.03.13 - Mozart's Piano Concerto no.19 in F, K.459

[Petrushka]

I'm happy with Brendel/Marriner in this. However, must search out the Pollini/Böhm recording.

[jayne lee wilson]

Just bought the BIS 24/96 of Brautigam/Kolner Akademie and am much taken with it... also like Andreas Staier/Concerto Koln...
Buchbinder from his cycle with the VSO is sweeter, more romantic, but that lovely orchestra retains enough agility. One of their best.

[BBMmk2]

Not another Mozart work on BaL?

[Alison]

Not another Mozart work on BaL?

The piano concertos seem to come round all too infrequently.

[BBMmk2]

Still yet another Mozart work, though! :(

[akiralx]

I'm a big fan of the Zacharias SACDs from Lausanne series on MDG - wonderful performances superbly recorded. My local store here in Melbourne had a sale with them for $10 each so I stocked up on a few...

Is that Sofronitzky a daughter of the Scriabiniste?

[amateur51]

I'm a big fan of the Zacharias SACDs from Lausanne series on MDG - wonderful performances superbly recorded. My local store here in Melbourne had a sale with them for $10 each so I stocked up on a few...

Is that Sofronitzky a daughter of the Scriabiniste?

It is she and a wonderful set it is too

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Complete-Con...2&sr=8-1-spell

[Nick Armstrong]

I'm a big fan of the Zacharias SACDs from Lausanne series on MDG - wonderful performances superbly recorded. My local store here in Melbourne had a sale with them for $10 each so I stocked up on a few...

Hi aki I'm with you - I love this developing cycle too, and am collecting it when I find them at an acceptable price (I have the first five volumes) - lucky you, finding them cheap.

I only have K459 on Vol 4 of that series, and also in the Perahia/ECO version (my starting point and the only version I had for years). Both are wonderful and it will take something very special to dislodge them and get me to part with the hard-earned....

Nonetheless, this is going to be a BAL I'll find very interesting.

Not sure about N Kenyon... what do we think about him on BAL? I can't recall his others...

[Stunsworth]

Still yet another Mozart work, though! :(

Live just checked the BaL website, and I counted 5 Mozart works since Sept 2010

[amateur51]

Live just checked the BaL website, and I counted 5 Mozart works since Sept 2010

That's about right I reckon, although I do realise that others might prefer BaLs on the works of George Lloyd, Dyson, Ned Rorem, etc.

What cheap BaLs they would be!

[Nick Armstrong]

That's about right I reckon, although I do realise that others might prefer BaLs on the works of George Lloyd, Dyson, Ned Rorem, etc.

What cheap BaLs they would be!

[silvestrione]

Just listened to my old Turnabout LP of Brendel with the Vienna Volksoper under a Wifried Boettcher. I always loved it, and it came up as fresh as fresh can be. Why is it that only young pianists can touch the piano like that? (OK, I know really) The playing of pianist and orchestra alike is joyous, buoyant, sprightly, chameleon-like in its playful changeableness, with a kind of inventive, creative spirit at work, which is Mozart's of course, but the players' as well. The sonorities are delightful, and the way Brendel matches piano sonorities to woodwind a joy also. The flute, oboe and basson are superb (I remember Richard Osborne suggesting years ago that they are almost certainly from the VPO of the day), as is whoever plays the left hand figures in the piano part in the contrapuntal episodes (forgive that whimsy: it's marvellous how Brendel makes them sound like an extra instrument). My version is mono, the sound a little thin I suppose, but you will see that I cannot believe there is a better version, except in terms of recording quality. I have Schnabel and the later Brendel and a Clara Haskil all fine but not on quite the same level.

[aeolium]

silvestrione #27

That VVO/Boettcher/Brendel recording was my first experience of the work and, as you say, a really good performance (though I didn't think of that at the time, only about the music). In fact, my brother had a collection of those Turnabout LPs of Mozart piano concertos (and the Vanguard one of nos 9 and 14 with Brendel partnered by I Solisti di Zagreb and Antonio Janigro). They were an excellent introduction to the works, though the sound on the Turnabouts was not the greatest.

[silvestrione]

Yes, aeol, I had no 22 in E flat as well, which I also loved, and the oboe (or is it flute) and bassoon passage in the slow movement I thought one of the most wonderful sounds on earth. And the minuet in the last movement....oh...Sadly, that LP did not last as well as the one with K 453 and 459.

It is fascinating to compare Brendel's quality of touch in those Turnabouts, with how it is in the recordings with Marriner. So light and quick and alive, in those earlier ones. Heavier when it needs to be. May be something to do with the instrument he was using, too?

[aeolium]

I agree with your comment about the later Philips recordings with Marriner and the ASMF (though of course there were many more recordings around by then). Yet Brendel himself apparently disavowed the earlier recordings IIRC.

Another very good Turnabout was the one with the last concerto K595, I think with the Vienna Pro Musica and Paul Angerer. Again my first encounter with that work. I loved the almost unearthly sound of the first movement.