[ Harmonia Mundi / CD ]
Release Date: Thursday 1 September 2016
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In January 1783 Mozart advertised in the Vienna press "the publication of three new, recently completed piano concertos", which could even be played with quartet accompaniment - thus enabling him to reach a wider public. In similar vein, he told his father that they were "very brilliant and pleasing to the ear . . . Here and there only connoisseurs will derive satisfaction from them - yet in such a way that the non-connoisseur will also be pleased, without knowing why."
It's a fair bet that these dazzling performances by Kristian Bezuidenhout and the Freiburger Barockorchester will meet with the same unanimous approval.
"The rounded tone, singing legato in slow movements and crisp articulation he coaxes from the instrument is far removed from the honky-tonk sounds of earlier attempts at period performances of the concertos...This well-known music sounds spontaneous and freshly conceived." Sunday Times, 21st August 2016
"It's a really fresh approach…I love the sound of it." Record Review, 13th August 2016
"Bezuidenhout is an imaginative and engaging soloist, getting a variety of colours from his fortepiano." Financial Times, 26th August 2016
"Though listed as director, Goltz is often closer to that of conductor, paying assiduous attention to instrumental balance, supporting or asserting as required. Only in the first movement of K414 is he a touch prosaic; otherwise he grants Bezuidenhout (who also plays continuo and uses the moderator for variations in tonal colour) the space needed for his searching interpretations. Every cadenza and lead-in is by Mozart; every slow movement is played with feeling. Very fine indeed" Classical Ear, 14th October 2016
"There's plenty of interpretative freedom...as the soloist takes Mozart's scores as a starting point rather than as the gospel handed down from above...he is superbly responsive to the music's high spirits and to the possibilities inherent in these scores." Gramophone Magazine, Editor's Choice November 2016
"These are dazzling and at times unusually searching performances." BBC Music Magazine, Concerto Choice - December 2016
Piano Concerto No. 11 in F major, K413
Piano Concerto No. 12 in A major, K414
Piano Concerto No. 13 in C major, K415