Search - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Orchestra di Padove e del Veneto :: Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos. 17 & 20

Ashkenazy, Orch de Padova e del Veneto: Mozart P Ctos 17 & 2

Dan Fee | Berkeley, CA USA | 09/16/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Here on the Japanese high resolution label, Exton, we get two new Mozart concerto readings from Vladimir Ashkenazy. He is pianist, and also leading the Orchestra of Padua and Venice from the keyboard. The venue is a good hall, catching up with the band on tour in 2003. Exton have captured these readings in very clear, rich, super audio surround sound. If you don't have an SACD-ready player, a second red book PCM layer can be read off the disc, stereo.



Let me give the news right away that these two new readings from Ashkenazy are among the very best Mozart piano concerto playing we are fortune to still have on disc. The comparisons are as exalted, as are these two new readings. Think Clara Haskil, Alfred Brendel, Artur Rubinstein, Clifford Curzon (with Britten, Kertesz, Kubelik), Rudolf Serkin (with Szell), John O'Conor (with Mackerras), Richard Goode (with Orpheus), Ivan Moravec (in Prague, or in London), Alicia De Larrocha, Maria Tipo, Matthias Kirschnereit (in Bamberg), Derek Han, Wilhelm Kempff (with Leitner), Eugene Istomin (in Seattle), Christian Zacharias (in Lausanne), and Paul Badura-Skoda (in Prague). Yes, these exalted Mozart readings settle beautifully in high company with high praise.



Japan's Exton has managed very clear, very rich sound. Full frequency, surround sound, five point one channels. The perspective is close, and so the aural impact is both vivid and intimate. Balances between piano and band are more an immersion, perhaps as if one were right next to the keyboard - rather than from middle hall. As it happened, the delivery of this disc came on the same day as my first set of Mozart piano sonatas by outstanding USA player Jeffrey Biegel. I popped the concertos in the portable, so eager was I to get into the disc. The PCM red book layer sounds just fine in stereo; and a spin on the surround sound high resolution home rig yielded the typical high resolution dividends. Stereo was expanded to five channels plus a subwoofer, so the whole field got warmer and more detailed and more present. This SACD really immerses a listener in Mozart; but I've already been repeating that theme of musical immersion, haven't I?



A word about the band. The orchestra of Padua and Venice is one of the younger Italian regional bands. Included in their founding genius was music director Peter Maag, noted for his apt and stylish Mozart, among other composers. Nevertheless, I found some of their early releases to be less than top drawer. The strings are not bad but usually lack the depth and polish of the big name players in, say, our global top ten bands, or maybe chamber outfits like Orpheus, English Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Luke's, and so forth. In Italy, the standing bands of La Scala and of Academia di Santa Cecilia easily play significantly better, and have been often recorded with excellent results.



Yet. On this disc the band rises to new heights, and I cannot really complain. The strings have a new sense of discipline and point. Woodwinds are lovely. Ensemble is alert, inflected, and really energized by Ashkenazy at the keyboard.



Right from the opening notes of the seventeenth piano concerto (K. 453), a listener sits up awake to take proper notice of this level of Mozart playing. A quick glance at the booklet documentation says that this reading was captured in live performance; it looks as if the band was on tour with Ashkenazy, and the venue is the Vienna Konzerthaus, in October, 2003. Okay then. The band was really on its toes, taking advantage of a chance to show Vienna audiences what it could do, and perhaps inspired by its distinguished pianist-leader?



The sparkle of concerto 17 is matched by the involvement of all players. Some friends have told me they do not much like Ashkenazy's complete Mozart piano concerto set with London Philharmonia as it sounds too romantic in manner. I think I will be spinning this disc to see if things get set right with that sometime critical crowd. As it is, by the end of the first movement I found myself recalling the big Mozart names I've listed in the opening commentary. The last Mozart concerto discs I enjoyed this much this year were two, one the shining recent disc of piano concertos 7, 12, and 23 by Leon Fleisher (Sony), and the other Zacharias latest disc in his ongoing Mozart concerto series (MDG). The slowed middle movement of K. 453 is tuneful, flowing, and still lighted with special sparkle. Ditto, the concluding third movement. I believe the cadenzas in the first two movements are the composer's, and since I cannot read Japanese in the booklet, I cannot say who is the third cadenza. It fits right in with Mozart style. The rococo period touches are deftly shaped without violating the Mozartean genius at work.



Then the disc goes on to the 20th concerto (K. 466). Shadows darkened and deepen a bit, musically. But the band and pianist are still rising high, engaged. The first movement drama is very present without turning out Mozart falsely, either into a younger version of himself in piano concertos, or into Beethoven. The first movement cadenza is actually from Beethoven, and Ashkenazy uses his own cadenza in the last movement. By this time in Mozart's musical development, the rococo touches or influences are so absorbed into Mozart's deepening style that a listening ear hardly notes them, even in passing. Again the woodwinds are special in the first movement. Hearing a reading this fresh reminds me again that the twentieth was one of my first concertos, in an old reading by British player Denis Matthews on the old Vanguard Recording Society label, back in vinyl days.



The slow movement unfolds so aptly in such song that it sounds inevitable. Tempos are forward moving but not rushed and mauled out of shape, either in the old-fashioned big band Mozart direction or in the going period instrument style. Articulation at the keyboard and among the band players is crisp, but not clipped. This movement is titled, Romanza, after all. The contrasting section properly invokes the turbulent harmonies of the first movement drama. Kudos to the woodwind section.



Then the final movement returns to the first movement's lights and shadows, gathering. But the harmony grows and tilts towards a resolution that the first movement could hardly envision, mixed with the lighter song of the middle movement in all its simplicity. There's nothing better when this concerto is well played; nothing worse when it gets poor or overly facile treatment.



Now that I have some juices going, I can consider that Mozart sonata first set by Jeffrey Biegel. This high resolution disc is going to have staying power I predict - a real fav shelf keeper. Five stars."