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Fleisher's wonderful way with Mozart's early K. 414

SwissDave | Switzerland | 04/29/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Let me admit the obvious: I'm a Leon Fleisher fan. I'm happy the fabled octogenarian is alive and kicking - and performing and making recordings! In truth, I'd been waiting for this disc ever since I heard Fleisher play Mozart's early K. 414/Piano Concerto No. 12 in Munich a few years ago, and came away thinking I'd never heard it interpreted more profoundly. I even had the audacity to ask him, cueing for an autograph after the concert, if he couldn't please (like many non-native speakers of the language, I may even have put this word in the - coughing slightly - wrong place in the sentence) record this - he gave me a smirk (or maybe it was a gracious smile?) and replied "Right, I should probably do this before I'm too old."



Realizing not everyone has been waiting for yet another Mozart Piano Concerto disc, let me get the awkward part out of the way first: this disc also contains a recording of Mozart's much more popular No. 23 K. 488 - a favourite piece of mine - and I'm not too taken with it. The playing sounds rather monochromatic to me, invariably played forte - the perfunctory orchestral accompaniment and overblown spatial reproduction of the piano doesn't really help either. I compared this to some favourite recordings (Haskil/Sacher, Kempff/Leitner and Moravec/Marriner - Moravec's earlier 1974 recording with Vlach remains my desert island choice) - even Keith Jarrett's fuss-free way with it sounds more inspired to me. Having said all this, I wouldn't dare call the performance bad - the music is so great, it reminds me of Beethoven's Emperor Concerto insofar as it's tempting to claim the piece plays itself. Fleisher still manages to make time stand still in the slow movement (but then, others achieve the same), but adds no interpretive insight elsewhere. Honestly, I would not complain if I had heard this performance live, but engraved on disc, it seems to me to detract from rather than add to the great man's recorded legacy. Unfortunately, I do not own a copy of Fleisher's 1949 broadcast with Bruno Walter in Los Angeles, so cannot compare - but I'm so bummed with this, I'll now have to try and find myself a copy.



Now the good part: Fleisher seems to have genuine fun playing No. 12, and achieves much more than to make it sound like high-spirited early Mozart. There is more flexibility, more songful phrasing, more dynamic shadings, more communicative warmth, even a fuller-bodied tone here. I like Fleisher's bass-oriented, at times also harpsicord- if not hammerklavier-sounding approach. He can be heard to be humming along here - rather than detract from the listening pleasure, it really only adds to the impression that the piece gets all the loving attention it deserves. Compared to this gem of a performance, the more popular No. 23 comes across like a tacked on filler on this disc (why Fleisher didn't record that back in his prime with Szell, by the way, when they made that superlative recording of No. 25 together, I don't know). It sure sounds as if the early No. 12 is closer to his heart here. I may be wrong, but even the recording perspective sounds a relevant bit warmer and more humane to me. Maybe it's just that the sweet memory from Munich (or the great recital last year in Lucerne) lingers...? Harrumph!

Comparison recordings? Not as easy to come by a great recording of K. 414 as of K. 488, I feel. I have always liked Kissin/Spivakov's early live performance (1984, when Kissin was still a 13-years-old wunderkind, and his playing relatively free from mannerisms - that Russia Revelation/Yedang recording is now also included in the Brilliant Classics box set) as a fine view of the piece as young man's music, but think I'll return to Fleisher more often in the future. So yes, I think this recording alone is worth the price of admission.



As to the arrangement for two (instead of three) pianos of the "Lodron Concerto" K. 242, which Fleisher plays with his wife Katherine Jacobson Fleisher, I know few alternative recordings (Perahia/Lupu and Eschenbach/Frantz/Schmidt) as the (per se very pretty!) piece is of less vital importance to me, but again, the Fleishers manage to communicate the fun they're having playing this, so that I can feel the attraction of the music itself growing on me.



Greetings from Switzerland, David."