SACDs - Mozart

Ronald Brautigam has been described as ‘an absolutely instinctive Mozartian… with melodic playing of consummate beauty’ (International Record Review), supported by the period orchestra Die Kölner Akademie in a partnership which more than one reviewer has termed ‘ideal’.

The Concerto in A major is one of only three piano concertos in which Mozart uses clarinets, resulting in an especially magical slow movement. Mozart described it as one of his most select compositions ‘which I keep just for myself and an élite circle of music lovers’.

Noriko Ogawa follows her recordings of Debussy’s solo piano works (BISCD1955/56) and Rachmaninov’s First and Fourth Piano Concertos (BIS-CD-975) with three piano sonatas by Mozart.

The three sonatas here are often grouped together as ‘the Paris Sonatas’.

At the time, Mozart was establishing himself in Vienna, and composed piano sonatas to exploit the growing market for printed music and to use as teaching material.

More than 200 years later these particular sonatas remain among Mozart’s best-loved compositions.

Ronald Brautigam returns with the third instalment in his series of Mozart’s piano concertos and is joined again by Die Kölner Akademie conducted by Michael Alexander Willens.

The present disc includes Piano Concerto No.26 in D major, K 537, nicknamed the ‘Coronation Concerto’. Although the title page stated the work was ‘performed by the composer at Frankfurt-am-Main on the occasion of the Coronation of Emperor Leopold II’, the concert took place a week after the actual coronation, and was not part of the official festivities.

It is here preceded by Piano Concerto No.17 in G major, K 453, one of the rare concertos that Mozart composed with another soloist than himself in mind – in this case his student Barbara Ployer.

Anu Komsi, Finland’s ‘coloratura assoluta’, here presents a wide-ranging programme, from mad scenes and rage arias from 18th- and 19th-century operas, to Alyabyev’s ever-soaring Nightingale and the silvery tinkling of Lakmé’s Bell Song.

Komsi also performs later examples of coloratura, including Glière’s glittering Concerto for coloratura and orchestra, and La Machine de l’être by the composer John Zorn – a work which she premiered in New York City in 2011.

The disc closes with a thoroughly idiomatic performance of Sibelius’ Luonnotar, with its text from the Finnish national epos Kalevala.

Throughout the programme, Anu Komsi is supported by the Lahti Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sakari Oramo.

This release completes Christian Zacharias’ prizewinning complete recording of Mozart’s piano concertos. The Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne and Zacharias have generated enchanting perfomances through their intimate dialogue.