Customer Reviews

Mozart: Piano Concerti 22 & 23

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I love this performances because it's full of drive/momentum. Maybe the 3rd movt.(Rondo) of No.23 is one of the fastest performance without sounding shallow or superficial. Extremely good sound quality is also a plus.

The Uchida/Tate/ECO cycle of Mozart Piano Concertos should have been a world-beater but it failed by a hairsbreadth. The Penguin Guide affixed the blame on Ucida, citing her `Dresden China' propensities. I would not disagree: there is something deeply unsatisfying about her playing - `deeply' in the sense of the flaw not being immediately apparent. On one level, the performances are very listenable, stylish and proficient. The connection of these masterworks with Mozart the opera composer is made clear. But in the last analysis, one is left unmoved. Keats, in his great wisdom, formulated the paradigm that Truth is Beauty and vice versa. That may be so but not in Mozart, whose abysses cannot be wallpapered over. When confronted with K 491 for instance, Uchida responds to the tempest with beautified passagework. One never senses a genuine, Richter-like reckoning with the Furies.

The performances above reflect the partnership at its best. They were recorded early in the cycle. Both concertos, it is true, have middle movements in a minor key. For whatever reason, in this instance Uchida threw caution to the wind to revel in the introspective darkness. Tate and the ECO are equally dazzling

While the A Major is more memorable performance-wise than the great E Flat, the latter should not be gainsaid. Girdlestone described K 482 as the most queenly of Mozart's ouevre and the stately treatment of the first movement supports this contention. Elsewhere, Uchida's embellishments in the interlude of the final movement are superb - I have yet to hear better. All in all, it is a fine performance

The rendition of the A Major, K 488, could be the best in existence. It is flawless. For example, Uchida's virtuosity in the finale is stunning (and nor was she able to recapture her brio in the Cleveland remake).

Don't buy the entire cycle - this solitary CD is the pick of the crop.

This disc has demo quality sound and the ECO plays beautifully under Tate - one of my earliest purchases on CD and a wonderful disc to listen to over and over again...

These two artists due greater justice to the genius of Mozart than virtually anyone--Warren Hunt