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

[visualnickmos]

.......Perahia . The latter in the particular deserved much more consideration . It is superb .

Quite so. I've noticed that from time to time that the BaL recommended performance is somehow a "one size fits all" choice..... and this then makes me feel that the nature of the programme is more like "here are some options, pick the one that suits you" which is no bad thing, but a re-examination of the structure of BaL may be due.

A glaringly "one size fits all" was LvB's violin concerto with Bruggen/Zehetmair - a fairly dull and uninspiring performance which does the job - gets you from A to B in one piece.

[Julien Sorel]

A glaringly "one size fits all" was LvB's violin concerto with Bruggen/Zehetmair - a fairly dull and uninspiring performance which does the job - gets you from A to B in one piece.

All you are saying is you find Zehetmair /Brüggen's performance "fairly dull and uninspiring"; I don't. Most of the reactions to BALs, and most of the BALs themselves are what kind of performance you like / what kind of performance the reviewer likes. "Dull and uninspiring" is a pretty good description of how I remember Perahia's ECO Mozart recordings from years ago. Since none of this can be demonstrated, since most modern recorded performances are technically competent, all the reviewer can do is show why she / he chooses certain performances. And the adverse reactions to reviews on here are surely because if you think something absolutely superb and the reviewer thinks it's dull or vice versa ... that's annoying. The reviewer has to be wrong, not you. And really no one is wrong.

[Richard Tarleton]

Just discovered that I have BPO/Barenboim lurking on my shelves. Will give it a spin right now...

I discovered yesterday I still have the Geza Anda LP - coupled with K415 - will give that a spin today! I found BAL quite informative, before it was later shot full of holes

[Nick Armstrong]

the overall winner was the recording by Richard Goode, which sounded interesting but it didn't cause me to leap from my seat.

Agreed. I've tried with Goode's performances with the Orpheus and it's strange, I can't put my finger on anything wrong, they just don't have the that makes these pieces among my favourites of all music.

I can understand why people found this BaL a bit pedantic but I did learn quite a bit and my big positive discovery was the later Barenboim performance.

Also agreed! I listened perfectly happily, learning a few things and hearing some performances (Haskil !... Sargent's portamenti !) for the first time... But the performance that caught my ear was indeed that brisk, live performance by Barenboim et al. For some reason I have an instinctive distrust of his style of performance often, in any music, but that sounded rather thrilling... but...

he also had kind words for Barenboim/BPO provided you don't mind the too-slow 2nd mov't (marked allegretto NB!)

... on the contrary, I thought his point was that this performance was one of the most 'allegretto'-style available (unlike some of the others for which he had a kind word - Pollini, Brendel...).

And that Kocsis performance: insanely quick! But it made me imagine WAM himself playing with a big grin on his face pour épater les bourgeois...!

No mention either of another version I much like - Zacharias with the Stuttgarters.

Is that his earlier reading on EMI? As mentioned above, like akiralx, I'm collecting Zacharias's current series with the Lausanne CO and I found it frankly bizarre that it didn't get any mention whatever. I've played it again today (noticing that it was a 'Diapason d'Or' in France, among other awards) and it does for me what I like Mozart piano concerto performances to do - as does the Perahia, given ludicrously short shrift.

I can only assume that Mr Kenyon looks for something rather different in his Mozart piano performances from what I'm after...

[Barbirollians]

I find the fact that anyone could find Perahia's piano playing dull and uninspiring quite remarkable . On the other hand on occasions I wish he had not directed from the keyboard but not in K459 or the concerto with which it was originally coupled K488 . I felt more the lack of a conductor in K482 and K503 .

[salymap]

Yes, I didn't hear it all but gather that I have the 'wrong' Barenboim set {ECO]; that poor old Malcolm Sargent and Schnabel are old fashioned {well that portamenti was the fashion in the 1930s]and that Richard Goode came out as the best. {I've found him, in other works, rather stodgey]I must have other recordings but they could be anywhere

[Ferretfancy]

I've just realised that Ingrid Haebler, who did so much for Mozart concertos in both the mono and stereo eras, did not get a single mention.I still have her K$59 0n LP with Colin Davis and the LSO, and it sounds great. I certainly began to know the concertos through her and Wilhem Kempff.

[EdgeleyRob]

Yes, I didn't hear it all but gather that I have the 'wrong' Barenboim set {ECO]; that poor old Malcolm Sargent and Schnabel are old fashioned {well that portamenti was the fashion in the 1930s]and that Richard Goode came out as the best. {I've found him, in other works, rather stodgey]I must have other recordings but they could be anywhere

That makes two of us Saly but what do critics know?.
I get a lot of enjoyment from this set despite it being the 'wrong' one.

[Bryn]

That makes two of us Saly but what do critics know?.
I get a lot of enjoyment from this set despite it being the 'wrong' one.

I have both the 'right' one and the 'wrong' one, and both seem pretty right to me.

[Julien Sorel]

I find the fact that anyone could find Perahia's piano playing dull and uninspiring quite remarkable.

My point exactly - I feel the same way about Zehetmair / Brüggen's Beethoven violin concerto: incredulity that anyone could find it fairly dull and uninspiring. Which suggests to me that BAL occasionally introduces a performance (rarely music, these days) that grabs some listener / s from nowhere or it confirms what some listeners know is obviously true and if it doesn't makes them grind their teeth in fury and quite remarkable expressions of incomprehension.

Off-topic but how good it would be if CD Review had a quarterly round up of contemporary music issues.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Off-topic but how good it would be if CD Review had a quarterly round up of contemporary music issues.

Really good. Back in my naive (and I don't mean the record company) younger days (2010) I used to suggest this when "asked" for my "comments and suggestions" on the CDR homepage! I'd've thought that, in this period of crisis in the recording world, some recognition of the success of labels like KAIROS, Stradivarius, NEOS, aeon etc might be in order. No chance; there's the annual mention of an NMC release as a token, otherwise it's half-an-hour on this week's re-release of the HMV Klemperer Brahms German Requiem.

[amateur51]

I can only assume that Mr Kenyon looks for something rather different in his Mozart piano performances from what I'm after...

Now there speaks the experienced BaL listener, in my view. There's nothing wrong with "I Know What I Like"

[amateur51]

Off-topic but how good it would be if CD Review had a quarterly round up of contemporary music issues.

Top suggestion, JS

[Julien Sorel]

Really good. Back in my naive (and I don't mean the record company) younger days (2010) I used to suggest this when "asked" for my "comments and suggestions" on the CDR homepage! I'd've thought that, in this period of crisis in the recording world, some recognition of the success of labels like KAIROS, Stradivarius, NEOS, aeon etc might be in order. No chance; there's the annual mention of an NMC release as a token, otherwise it's half-an-hour on this week's re-release of the HMV Klemperer Brahms German Requiem.

The etcs., of course, including Mode, col legno and Wergo. And to broaden the musical boundaries Emanem & psi recordings. Another Timbre's wonderful Wandelweiser und so weiter set. And the sad thing is people are doing the work, making the recordings - and listening to the BBC's CD review programme gives no idea. That's a shameful failure, IMV.

[visualnickmos]

All you are saying is you find Zehetmair /Brüggen's performance "fairly dull and uninspiring"; I don't. Most of the reactions to BALs, and most of the BALs themselves are what kind of performance you like / what kind of performance the reviewer likes. "Dull and uninspiring" is a pretty good description of how I remember Perahia's ECO Mozart recordings from years ago. Since none of this can be demonstrated, since most modern recorded performances are technically competent, all the reviewer can do is show why she / he chooses certain performances. And the adverse reactions to reviews on here are surely because if you think something absolutely superb and the reviewer thinks it's dull or vice versa ... that's annoying. The reviewer has to be wrong, not you. And really no one is wrong.

I agree with you - especially with your very last point. I hadn't intended to come across in perhaps the heavy-handed way that my words suggest! For that I apologise.