Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) - Piano Concerto No. 22 in E Flat Major, K. 482; Piano Concerto No. 23 in A Major, K. 488 (1998) Cover Front Album Composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) Conductor Christopher Hogwood Orchestra / Ensemble I The Academy of Ancient Music Length 58:32 Format CD Genre Concerto; Piano Concerto Index 350 Out of Print No Musicians Soloist Levin Credits Producer Chris Sayers Label L'Oiseau-Lyre Track List 01 Piano Concerto No. 23 in A Major, K. 488: I. Allegro 11:26 02 Piano Concerto No. 23 in A Major, K. 488: II. Adagio 06:18 03 Piano Concerto No. 23 in A Major, K. 488: III. Allegro assai 08:02 04 Piano Concerto No. 22 in E Flat Major, K. 482: I. Allegro 12:43 05 Piano Concerto No. 22 in E Flat Major, K. 482: II. Andante 08:07 06 Piano Concerto No. 22 in E Flat Major, K. 482: III. Allegro 11:56 Personal Purchase Date 7/20/2002 Value $16.50 Store eBay Condition 100% Nationality Austrian Period Classical Details Studio Walthamstow Town Hall, London Catalog Number 452 052-2 Live No Recording Date 8/21/1995 Spars DDD Reissue No Sound Stereo Notes Robert Levin: Fortepiano (Christopher Clarke, Cluny, 1986, after Anton Walter, Vienna, 1795) Notes and illustrations Essay: Cliff Eisen, 1998 Essay: "A Note on Performance and Improvisation" by Robert Levin Gramophone review: "Robert Levin’s illuminating series of Mozart piano concertos continues with this delectable disc of the two works from the winter of 1785-6, the two in which clarinets replace the traditional oboes (the only remaining one with clarinets, K491, needs both). The glitter of the fortepiano - a fine instrument by Christopher Clarke after Anton Walter, whose instruments Mozart used - against the softened, oboe-less orchestral texture is just one of the special delights here. Another is Levin’s natural and spontaneous playing - if one can say that about a piece he could undoubtedly have played backwards for years - in the A major work, the first movement especially, where his timing and phrasing sound truly improvisatory, as if he is thinking the music afresh. Which indeed he is; and his touches of ornamentation - listen for example to the main secondary theme in the recapitulation - are witty, inventive and wholly Mozartian. He plays his own cadenza here rather than the Mozart one that everybody else (in my experience) uses, taking that however as his starting-point and moving off in new directions and sampling a different selection of themes. Mozart would have loved it. I’m not entirely certain whether the composer would have enjoyed, quite so much, some of the elaboration of the line in the Adagio, tasteful though it undoubtedly is; I miss certain poetic moments in the original, but we can after all hear them on any other recording. The finale is full of excitement and high spirits. "Christopher Hogwood directs the E flat Concerto with a fine feeling for its more symphonic character; and Levin too, in his management of the extended solos, is very successful in conveying its breadth with his refined control over the tension while at the same time both brilliant and playful. He gives a deeply felt account of the C minor Andante which is enhanced by the admirable AAM wind ensemble playing (and especially the duet for the flute and bassoon) - no one should imagine that the use of period instruments makes it in any way more difficult to realize the darkness of this movement. The finale goes with a splendid swing and of course Levin embellishes the Andante cantabile interlude very effectively. "The balance favours the orchestra, and the wind instruments in particular, by comparison with recordings that use a modern piano; the piano sound is much more integrated into the texture. But this represents the music as Mozart imagined it and as his own audiences heard it, including the gentle, harmonious clunk of the continuo accompaniment in the tuttis."