[ Sony Classical / 2 CD ]
Release Date: Friday 28 May 2021
Mozart Momentum 1785 is the first of two releases exploring Mozart's Vienna years. It includes piano concertos Nos. 20-22, the Piano Quartet in G minor, Masonic Funeral Music, and Fantasia in C minor for solo piano.
"The idea of this project was to explore the diversity of what was going on in Mozart's creative life at the time - to show that a separation between solo playing, chamber music playing and concerto playing isn't really relevant," says Andsnes. "You find that some piano parts in the chamber music are more virtuosic than those in the concertos. It all goes hand in hand."
Leif Ove Andsnes will embark on this new chapter with a trusted partner: The Mahler Chamber Orchestra. Their previous concerto project - the five piano concertos by Beethoven - produced recordings that won BBC Music Magazine's Disc of the Year, were nominated for Gramophone Awards and hailed as new benchmarks. "There's so much more to this partnership than just exceptional playing; there's a palpable sense of discovery, of living the music," says Gramophone. The Guardian raved "You'd be hard-put to find a pianist and orchestra better matched."
'Socially distanced they may have been but the camaraderie that was so evident in their groundbreaking Beethoven cycle with Leif Ove Andsnes is, if anything, even more apparent here.' Gramophone Recording of the Month June 2021
Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K466
Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major, K467 'Elvira Madigan'
Fantasia in C minor, K475
Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor, K478
Masonic Funeral Music in C minor, K477
Piano Concerto No. 22 in E flat major, K482