Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Performer: Jean-Efflam Bavouzet
Orchestra: Manchester Camerata
Conductor: Gábor Takács-Nagy
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Chandos
Catalogue: CHAN10929
Release: 2016
Size: 1.23 GB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
Piano Concerto No. 17 in G major, K453
01. I. Allegro (Arr. for Wind Quintet by Ulf-Guido Schäfer)
02. II. Conclusion (Bavouzet Cadenza)
03. III. Andante
04. IV. Conclusion (Bavouzet Cadenza)
05. V. Allegretto
Piano Concerto No. 18 in B flat major, K456
06. I. Allegro vivace
07. II. Andante un poco sostenuto
08. III. Allegro vivace
Divertimento in B flat major, K137
09. I. Andante
10. II. Allegro di molto
11. III. Allegro assai
Piano Concerto No. 17 in G Major, K. 453
12. II. Conclusion (Mozart Cadenza)
13. IV. Conclusion (Mozart Cadenza)
After demonstrating their ‘innate love and understanding of Haydn’s music in performances of the expected vivacity and insight’ (BBC Music – CHAN10808), Bavouzet and Takács-Nagy, the latter conducting his Manchester Camerata, now explore Mozart’s extraordinarily prolific year 1784 in this new series.
Two of the six concertos composed that year are heard here, each unusual for having been written by Mozart for another pianist and for featuring a central Andante, instead of the more common Adagio.
This is a unique version that, as Bavouzet stresses in his booklet note, ‘although played unequivocally on modern instruments, contrasts with those versions made not so very long ago, which used a large orchestra incorporating sixteen violins and eight double-basses’. He adds: ‘a versions which also will take into account a number of performing practices current in Mozart’s time, such as the use of a solo quartet to accompany certain well-defined passages in which the piano is predominant. A version which in one way or another aims to link tradition and modernity.’