Search - Ludwig van Beethoven, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Karl Böhm :: Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 23; Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 5

The partnership of Pollini and Bohm comes up better the seco

Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 09/08/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"It's rather odd that a reviewer below finds Pollini definitive in Mozart considering that he recorded exactly two Mozart concertos (#19 and #23) in 1976 and then waited thirty years before recording another. I like Pollini's two recent Mozart CDs, both with the pianist as conductor, both with gorgeous playing from the Vienna Phil., and so I decided to return to his 1976 account of the great Concerto No. 23 in A, K. 488. I had previously found him too straight and traditional, even stiff, and although that judgment may be too harsh, Pollini finds little original to say. Sample the opening of the eloquent slow movement, which begins piano solo, and I don't think you will hear much beyond a fine pianist acting polite. On the other hand, Karl Bohm is better than I had remembered, and his surging Romantic accompaniment is moving at times -- again, listen to the orchestra's entry after the piano in the slow movement. (DG's edgy recording doesn't do much to warm up the proceedings, however.).



I had also found the 'Emperor' Concerto from that era a disappointment, becasue Pollini struck me as uninvolved and Bohm as dull and conventional. On rehearing, I must admit that Pollini begins with considerable sweep and impact. Bohm conceives of the Emperor as a large-scale romantic work, which for me is the right approach, and the Vienna Phil. accomplishes all that it needs to. Pollini's solo passages are thrilling, particularly in the first movement.



The slow movement, taken as a true Adagio, sings naturally, with touching romantic rubato -- better in this regard than what Abbado does in Pollini's remake of the Emperor from the Nineties. Here, however, the pianist sounds a bit impatient and aloof. The finale opens with treacherous demands on the soloist. As you'd expect, the trills combined with fistfuls of notes pose no hurdles for Pollini. This movement sounds too sturdy and foursquare, however -- Bohm's traditionalism holds things back. But on his own Pollini's solo passages are thrilling.



DG places the paino forwrd, but not to the grotesque degree that another reviewer complains of. In all, I take back some of my old opinions and replace them with more positive ones."