Latest / The Piano Maven with Jed Distler / Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23 K. 488 on Disc

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Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23 K. 488 on Disc · The Piano Maven with Jed Distler

0:07
This is Jed Disler, and welcome to The Piano
0:11
Maven, your friendly podcast guide to piano recordings.
0:14
I want to apologize for not having two episodes
0:18
in the past week. It's been a rather challenging
0:21
time because so many musicians have been leaving
0:27
us. In addition to Michael Tilson Thomas and
0:31
Ruth Slinczynska, whose names are probably familiar
0:36
to you, I'm sure, I lost two composer -pianist
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colleagues and friends, Michael Harrison and
0:44
Andrew Thomas. Michael Harrison experimented
0:49
a lot with tunings, and he developed a really...
0:54
personal and expressive style that is rooted
0:58
in minimalism, yet it goes its own way. His magnum
1:03
opus for solo piano is a piece called Revelation
1:06
for the harmonically tuned piano. And I should
1:11
do an episode about Revelation in the near future
1:15
because it's a remarkable piece. And Andrew Thomas
1:19
was the director of the pre -college at the Juilliard
1:23
School of Music for many years. He was a wonderful
1:27
composer and he was also my composition teacher
1:29
when I was a teenager at the pre -college and
1:33
I also studied with him privately and he wrote
1:37
an absolutely gorgeous solo piano piece for me
1:40
called Music at Twilight way back in 1986. Can
1:45
you believe that's 40 years ago? And I gave the
1:49
premiere of that piece. And we collaborated many
1:52
times together where I played his music and he
1:55
conducted pieces of mine. And unfortunately,
1:59
I had lost touch. a lot with both Andy and Michael
2:04
after the pandemic. And it just goes to show
2:08
you that you cannot take these friendships for
2:11
granted. I also appreciate all the feedback that
2:14
I got about my episode on the topic of Sviatoslav
2:19
Richter at Carnegie Hall and the 1960 recordings.
2:25
You all came up with some very interesting observations,
2:28
and I'm very happy that we could have a dialogue
2:32
about that. I think we're going to have a dialogue
2:35
about the topic of this episode, which is about
2:40
Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23 in A Major, Kershaw
2:45
488. Without a doubt... This is one of Mozart's
2:50
most popular piano concertos. He completed the
2:54
work in 1786, around the time that he also was
2:59
composing his opera The Marriage of Figaro. One
3:02
aspect of this work's appeal, I think, is that
3:06
it has a very strong chamber music orientation,
3:09
and there's a lot of interaction between the
3:13
piano soloist and the woodwinds, especially.
3:16
The piece is scored for flute, two clarinets,
3:20
two bassoons, two horns, strings and solo piano.
3:25
Interestingly, Mozart does not use oboes in this
3:29
concerto, and perhaps that accounts for the distinctive
3:33
timbral warmth that I think characterizes this
3:37
work. Not that an oboe cannot be warm or far
3:40
from it, but you know what I'm saying. Also,
3:43
there are no trumpets and drums, so the intimacy
3:47
is established by virtue of the instrumentation.
3:52
And what a graceful first movement this concerto
3:56
contains. And that famous slow movement, which
3:59
is in the key of... F sharp minor Mozart rarely
4:03
casts his piano concerto slow movements in a
4:07
minor key so this is very special in that regard
4:11
and although he marks the tempo adagio the siciliano
4:17
feeling of the music always makes me think that
4:20
pianists tend to take this movement too slowly
4:24
and too reverentially and I guess that's kind
4:28
of a tradition We'll talk about pianists who
4:32
deliberately go against that tradition, or maybe
4:35
not so much deliberately as organically. I'll
4:39
talk about that in due course. But the finale
4:42
is a real virtuoso tour de force, but it is still
4:46
full of rapid -fire chamber music exchanges.
4:51
This work has been recorded numerous times, and
4:55
there is no way that I'm going to get to each
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and every recording of 488 ever made, but I'm
5:01
going to talk about ones that I particularly
5:04
like, or ones that I think have special distinction
5:07
in different ways. But this was the Mozart concerto
5:11
that probably preoccupied Arthur Rubinstein more
5:15
than any other Mozart concertos that he played.
5:18
And he recorded it no less than three times in
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the studio. He actually made this work's first
5:25
recording, if I'm not mistaken, back in 1931
5:29
with John Barbaroli conducting the London Symphony
5:33
Orchestra. The outer movements in this performance
5:36
are really... quite invigorating although he
5:39
would take similar tempos with much more poise
5:43
in his 1949 remake with vladimir gulshman and
5:48
the saint louis symphony which I think On Balance
5:52
is by far the best of Rubinstein's three recordings
5:55
of this piece. It's a beautiful and cogently
5:59
balanced interpretation where the soloist and
6:02
conductor really interact, and the woodwinds
6:06
are wonderful in the middle movement. But the
6:08
1961 remake with the RCA Victor Symphony, I think
6:13
it was that group. It was definitely a pickup
6:16
orchestra. with Alfred Wallenstein conducting.
6:20
It's smaller of scale and less striking in terms
6:24
of detail. I don't think it's all that special,
6:27
to be honest. And there is a live BBC broadcast
6:31
with Colin Davis that was released, I think,
6:35
on BBC Legends or ICA, one of those labels. But
6:40
the problem was that the recording was released
6:44
off -pitch, so that's out of the running. And
6:47
the sound quality wasn't all that great to begin
6:50
with. There is a well -known Artur Schnabel air
6:54
check of this concerto. He never recorded the
6:57
piece in the studio. dates from 1946, and Artur
7:03
Roginski is conducting the New York Philharmonic.
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And unfortunately, Schnabel is rather off form.
7:11
He rushes through passage work in a nervous,
7:15
kind of unsettled manner. And in the finale,
7:19
in the rondo, he suffers a major memory lapse.
7:23
And in the original broadcast recording, you
7:28
hear Schnabel stop. playing in order to look
7:31
at Rudzinski's score, and then they pick things
7:34
up from a later point. Schnabel's student, Clifford
7:38
Curzon, made no less than four commercial studio
7:43
recordings of 488. I think one of the best is
7:47
the one that he did with George Sell conducting
7:51
the Vienna Philharmonic. It's from 1964, and
7:54
the Vienna Philharmonic plays wonderfully well
7:58
for Zell, although his Cleveland Orchestra performance
8:02
of this work, I think, has better orchestra playing.
8:06
It's much more regimented, and there's a much
8:10
stronger chamber aesthetic to it. But unfortunately,
8:13
that recording has Robert Cossadesu in the piano
8:18
part, and I think he's so uninteresting. He just
8:22
plays the notes and only the notes. I find it
8:26
very mechanical and cold playing. But back to
8:30
Clifford Curzon, who could not play cold lean
8:33
mechanically, even if he tried. His first recording.
8:37
of this piece was with Boyd Neill conducting
8:41
the National Symphony on Decca in 1945. And I
8:47
like this recording. It's a little reverberant
8:50
for my taste, but I think it contains Curzon's
8:54
best playing of the finale. And then there's
8:57
a commercial recording from 1967 with Curzon
9:01
and the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by
9:05
Istvan Curtis. And the slow movement is... a
9:10
little more meditative than in other Curzon recordings,
9:14
but it's beautifully sustained, and there is
9:17
a strong rhythmic backbone. Curzon is a little
9:20
more careful in the finale, and there are a couple
9:24
of split notes, not that it really matters, but
9:28
it doesn't quite have the linear sophistication
9:30
of the George Sell orchestral support in Vienna.
9:34
Oh, I forgot to mention Curzon's 1953 recording
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of the piece with Joseph Cripps conducting the
9:41
LSO. And it has that nice gemurlichkeit feeling.
9:47
The sonics are a little drab. It's not my favorite
9:51
of the Curzon recordings, to be honest. But from
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1953, there's actually a much better recording
9:57
with Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli and the orchestra
10:03
Alessandra Scarlatti under the direction of Franco...
10:09
Caracciolo. And this is not a recording to underestimate,
10:13
like I did for many years until I re -listened
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to it, especially for this podcast. And I liked
10:20
it so much better than I remembered. Well, first
10:23
of all, the orchestra plays very well. This may
10:26
be a second -tier band, but they really do rise
10:29
to the occasion. And Michelangeli's tonal control
10:33
and his concentration and his expressive reserve.
10:38
really compel you to listen every second of the
10:41
way. And in the slow movement, Michelangeli makes
10:44
the piano sound as if it had lungs rather than
10:48
hammers. But Walter Gieseking's recording from
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1951 with Herbert von Karajan and the Philharmonia
10:56
Orchestra, in this recording, Gieseking makes
10:59
the piano sound as if it has both lungs and vocal
11:04
cords. hurliest legato in the slow movement.
11:11
It's really quite extraordinary. No other pianist
11:15
sounds quite like him in this movement, such
11:18
Apollonian control and symmetry. And Gieseking
11:23
makes expressive points through shading and color,
11:27
not through rubato. I think that Carrion's beautifully
11:31
blended orchestral framework doesn't really allow
11:35
the diversity of Mozart's scoring to come fully
11:39
alive. The winds seem generally on the same level
11:42
as the strings, and of course the strings dominate,
11:46
as is usually the case with Carrion. But to hear
11:50
Walter Legge's Philharmonia Orchestra in their
11:54
best days play... even more vibrantly and characterfully,
12:00
I would go to the 1961 recording that they made
12:05
with soloist Annie Fisher. The recording shows
12:08
its age a little bit, but... It really doesn't
12:11
matter because this is such a lovingly and discreetly
12:15
inflected performance. And Adrian Bolt is a wonderful,
12:20
wonderful accompanist. So Annie Fisher, Adrian
12:23
Bolt, Philharmonia Orchestra, 1961. This is a
12:27
really fantastic K488. For subtle inflection
12:33
and totally idiomatic immersion, Wilhelm Kempf's
12:38
solo work. I think is also pretty special. And
12:42
he gets pretty good support from the Vienna Symphony
12:45
Orchestra under Ferdinand Leitner. And he moves
12:48
the slow movement a little faster than usual.
12:51
You really get the Siciliano feeling. I think
12:54
the orchestra is a little bit reticent, to be
12:57
honest. But this same orchestra, the VSO, Vienna
13:01
Symphony Orchestra, sound as if they were recorded
13:04
underwater in this very resonant... recording
13:09
that features Clara Haskell as soloist and Paul
13:13
Sascha as conducting and you can tell that Clara
13:17
Haskell is playing with the sensitivity and cultivation
13:20
that you would expect from her but I feel like
13:24
Paul Sacher is just beating time. But if you
13:27
still want the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, we
13:30
have to go a couple of decades later to a recording
13:34
made in the late 1990s with Rudolf Buchbinder
13:38
conducting from the piano. This is one of the
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best versions of this concerto with a pianist
13:44
leading from the instrument. And you get a really
13:47
equitable balance between soloist and orchestra,
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which is not... quite... the case in the Murray
13:55
Pariah recording with the English Chamber Orchestra.
13:59
But this performance with Pariah really, really
14:03
clicks in the slow movement because it showcases
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Pariah's gift for, I would even say his genius
14:11
for generating tension in the music's quieter
14:15
moments through exquisite shading and split second
14:19
timing. This is one of the best 480. eight slow
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movements on disc, and I think it's the highlight
14:26
of this performance. And it contrasts to Gesa
14:30
Anda's relatively hammered -out slow movement.
14:34
I think this is just very mechanical and bangy
14:37
playing, and he's always louder than he needs
14:40
to be. This is not one of the high points of
14:43
Gesa Anda's cycle, which was the first... commercially
14:48
released Mozart cycle to be led from the keyboard.
14:52
But back to the Archer Schnabel School and one
14:56
of his other major students and disciples, Leon
14:59
Fleischer. There were several live performances
15:03
with Fleischer playing this piece. There was
15:06
a 1959 broadcast with the Los Angeles Philharmonic
15:11
and Bruno Walter conducting, which is very exciting.
15:14
There are little bits of rushing every now and
15:17
then. And then there's a performance from November
15:20
1964 with the Musica Eterna Orchestra conducted
15:25
by Frederick Waldman in New York City. And I
15:28
think that there is that sense of adrenaline
15:31
and live performance where sometimes the ensemble
15:35
derails very slightly, but the slow movement
15:38
is very beautiful. However, Fleischer did record
15:42
this in the studio in 2009 with the Stuttgart
15:46
Chamber Symphony, or Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra.
15:49
It's a very distinctive and beautifully balanced
15:53
recording. And while we are in Stuttgart, the
15:57
great jazz pianist Keith Jarrett recorded four
16:00
Mozart concertos with the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra
16:04
under the direction of Dennis Russell Davies,
16:08
including 488. I find Keith Jarrett's tone is
16:12
quite beautiful and focused, but I find his interpretation
16:16
rather pedestrian, and he gets no help from the
16:20
conductor. It's kind of literal and... subdued.
16:24
And what I find interesting is that another jazz
16:27
pianist, Chick Corea, recorded 488. Now, Chick
16:33
Corea does not have the sophisticated classical
16:36
technique that Keith Jarrett has. He tends to
16:40
play on top of the keys rather than deep in the
16:43
keys, if you know what I mean. But his playing,
16:47
Chick Corea's playing, has so much more life
16:50
in contrast to it. The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra
16:56
plays fantastically under the direction of Bobby
16:59
McFerrin, the great jazz singer. And what's interesting
17:03
is both Bobby McFerrin and Chick Corea do these
17:06
introductory improvised cadenzas before the first
17:10
movement's opening ritornello. And you will rarely
17:13
hear this ritornello played better. There's a
17:16
real lilt to the string phrasing, and the winds
17:20
are just cackling with joy. have such an affection
17:24
for this recording because there's a sense of
17:27
freshness and a joy of discovery, which I do
17:31
not hear in the Jarrett and Dennis Russell Davies
17:35
collaborations, which are very Koppelmeister
17:38
-like by comparison, at least in my ears. Going
17:42
back to pianists who recorded 488 at least twice,
17:47
Ivan Moravec. offers clearer and less pedal -reliant
17:53
solo work in his second recording from the late
17:57
1990s with Neville Mariner and the Academy of
18:01
St. Martin in the Fields. However, the earlier
18:04
recording, which I don't find as good pianistically,
18:08
I think has crisper sonics and slightly more
18:12
incisive playing from the Czech Chamber Orchestra
18:15
under Leopold Vlach. And while we're talking
18:19
about the Academy of St. Martin in the fields,
18:22
I think that Neville Mariner and this orchestra
18:25
turn in a much more captivating and texturally
18:28
interesting accompaniment in the recording that
18:32
they made in the 1970s with Alfred Brendel. And
18:36
Brendel... fuses intellectual rigor with a genuine
18:41
forward momentum and rather kinetic way of shaping
18:46
phrases that I find very appealing. I think this
18:49
is one of Brendel's best Mozart concerto recordings.
18:53
And then we bounce back to the English Chamber
18:57
Orchestra and Jeffrey Tate conducting with the
19:00
piano soloist Mitsuko Ushida. Their recording
19:05
of 488 is very nice. I mean, everything is there,
19:09
as you would expect. But I do think that there's
19:12
more character and dynamic contrast and witty
19:16
interplay between soloist and orchestra in Ushida's
19:21
remake, where she conducts the Cleveland Orchestra
19:24
from the piano. But for greater intimacy and
19:28
poetry and spontaneity, and the English Chamber
19:32
Orchestra. I keep going back to that recording
19:35
with Colin Davis conducting Alicia de la Rocha,
19:39
and this is a really, really lovely performance.
19:42
As I said at the outset of the program, the slow
19:45
movement is marked a Daggio, but it does have
19:49
the feeling of a Siciliano. And Vladimir Horowitz
19:53
strongly feels the Siciliano, and he approaches
19:58
this movement much more as an allegretto than
20:01
an indagio, although with great flexibility.
20:04
This is his only Mozart concerto recording, and
20:08
it's from 1987. And it has Carlo Maria Giulini
20:13
conducting the La Scala Orchestra. What's interesting
20:17
about this slow movement... is that as Horowitz
20:21
finds more places to inflect the music, the fast
20:25
tempo that he sets at the outset gradually settles
20:29
into something slower than it starts to be. But
20:32
I do like Horowitz's creativity in phrasing.
20:36
I also like that he plays the Bussoni cadenza
20:39
in the first movement, which is not the last
20:42
word in Mozart's style, of course, but it's a
20:45
marvelous and imaginative cadenza that I... think
20:49
has validity. That said, I think that Alain Grimaud
20:53
in her recording leading the Bavarian Radio Orchestra
20:58
from the keyboard, well at least there's no conductor
21:01
mentioned on this recording, I think that Alain
21:04
Grimaud plays the Busoni cadenza with even more
21:07
verve and cojones, if you will. This is a very
21:11
interesting and engaging interpretation all around.
21:14
But back to the Siciliano tempo. And one pianist
21:19
who almost approximates Horowitz's tempo conception
21:23
is Halina Czerny -Stefanska. In a 1966 recording
21:30
with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra under Carol
21:34
Anchorell, this interpretation is a real party
21:38
for the woodwinds who just... thoroughly dominate
21:42
and basically take over the concerto, and they
21:45
keep you at the edge of your seat. This is a
21:48
marvelous and really original and fresh interpretation.
21:53
It's a real sleeper. People don't talk about
21:56
it, but I come back to this recording with great
21:59
pleasure very often. As for Mikhail Pletnev and
22:03
his recording of 488, I would call his fast tempo
22:08
for the finale a hostile takeover, and I'm just
22:12
going to leave it at that. I am leaving out so
22:15
many fine recordings of 488 in this talk, and
22:19
I know I'm going to hear from you, and you're
22:21
going to complain, hey Jed, why didn't you mention
22:24
blah blah blah. I expect that, and I certainly
22:27
welcome it. I'd like to know which recordings
22:30
you like. But the recording for me that offers
22:35
the most well -considered, best thought -out,
22:39
yet genuinely felt and well -organized -sounding
22:44
repartee between soloist, conductor, and musicians
22:49
comes from Andras Schiff with the Camerata...
22:54
Academica de Mozarteum Salzburg. I hope I'm pronouncing
23:00
that mouthful right. With Chandor Vech conducting,
23:04
and the internal shaping of phrases, and the
23:07
intelligently scaled dynamics, the attention
23:10
to bass lines, and the way that no solo line
23:14
with the first chair players goes unaccounted
23:17
for. And I'm not talking about micromanaging
23:20
or overly highlighting details. There's none
23:23
of that. Everything in this interpretation with
23:26
Schiff and Wech sings and breathes and speaks
23:31
as if the music is going straight from Mozart's
23:35
head to these instrumentalists. And there's a
23:39
lot of personality to the music making, but I
23:42
really feel that the composer and the performers
23:45
are all merging as a single entity. No gimmicks,
23:49
no attention -getting curlicues, yet no interpreting
23:53
with kid gloves or putting this music on a pedestal.
23:57
I think this recording takes the best qualities
24:00
of many of the others I've been talking about,
24:03
and just brings it all together. And it's also
24:06
very beautifully recorded. If you prefer a larger
24:11
orchestra in this piece to chamber forces, I
24:14
get a similar unselfregarding yet musically generous
24:19
impression from the recording I talked about
24:22
earlier with Annie Fisher, the Philharmonia Orchestra,
24:26
and Adrian Boult conducting. This is Jed Disler,
24:30
and you've been listening to The Piano Maven,
24:32
your friendly podcast guide to piano recordings.
24:36
And I invite you to explore the links that I
24:41
have to various performances of K -488 that I
24:45
have provided in the episode description. Also,
24:49
consider taking a paid subscription to The Piano
24:53
Maven, and paid subscribers get a free download
24:56
at the start of each month. And your support
24:59
helps keep this podcast alive and kicking. Thank
25:04
you so much for listening, and enjoy this fantastic
25:07
Mozart concerto and whatever recording you decide
25:11
to acquire. And I look forward to being with
25:14
you for our next episode.