Customer Reviews

Mozart - Symphony No. 41, Piano Concerto No. 20, Divertimento K.113, Hartmut Haenchen

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All three works on this DVD feature masterful interpretations of Mozart's Jupiter Symphony, 20th piano concerto and divertimiento k.113. The lighting, film quality and sound mastering are all excellent. You feel a richness of timbre that makes one feel as if one is at the concert.

Particularly excellent is the performance of Mozart's brilliant, mysterious, non-linear, psychedelic and nearly incomprehensible Piano Concerto no.20. Stefan Vladar plays a brilliant, energetic, nuanced interpretation of the piano part and hits the complex dynamics of the piece at the proper moments. He plays on a well-tuned concert grand Steinway piano with a fine sound that is well microphoned. You feel the energy of the music, and above all you feel how Mozart takes the listener into sprawling directions of tone, as if the music has a weird fractal energy, like a roller-coaster of notes that leads into weird melodic permutations, then changes direction and cascades into somewhere else. The concerto is music from another planet. It is conceptually non-linear and seems to defy definitive interpretation.

My first order of this DVD from the UK never reached me. Then I ordered it from classical_music_superstore and received it a few days later. It was well worth the wait. I had been only vaguely familiar with Hartmut Haenchen and his magnificent Kammerorchester C.Ph.E. Bach before, nor was the pianist Stefan Vladar a household name. When I first played this disk (in outstanding audio and video), I was in for an exquisite treat, and it gets better upon each hearing. Haenchen is a first-rank musician, and so are his group of soloists. They are playing like angels, in effortless collaboration and all standing up. This ca. 30-members orchestra is among the most transparent and, at the same time, most spirited, refined and powerful Mozart ensembles I have heard. The Divertimento K. 113 sets the tone, lightweight as it may be. In the D minor concerto, Vladar shows amazing virtuosity and sensitivity to Mozart's style. He plays wonderful embellishments and often follows the orchestral tutti. I can not find more superlatives for this performance, likewise for the brilliant and luminous Jupiter Symphony. Just listen and see, you will be bowled over.