Mozart:
- Piano Concertos Nos. 20 and 25.
It was a sad day for music lovers when conductor Claudio Abbado died on January 20, 2014. In the business of recorded music, the time-line is frequently long, so we find ourselves with an amazing recording, of music that he performed about a year before his passing.
We hear the following music, as performed by Martha Argerich, piano, with the Orchestra Mozart, Claudio Abbado conducting.
Mozart:
- Piano Concerto No. 25 in C major, K503
This album of two concertos by Mozart, was the final recording made by Maestro Abbado. The legendary pianist and conductor added the sublime music of Mozart to their multi award-winning discography of concertos by Tchaikovsky, Chopin, Ravel, Prokofiev, Beethoven and Liszt.
The album contrasts two very different works. Written in D minor, the darkly dramatic Concerto No. 20, K.466 has a stormy, syncopated operatic feeling that seems to look forward eighteen months to the premiere of Mozart’s Don Giovanni.
In contrast, the majestic and radiant opening of the concerto No. 25 in C major, K.503 is the culmination of the twelve earlier concertos that Mozart wrote in Vienna between 1784 and 1786.
Both concertos were recorded with Claudio Abbado’s ‘Orchestra Mozart’, at the 2013 Lucerne Festival that had critics searching for new superlatives.
The Times wrote on 24th January 2014:
…“the tidy sheen of the Orchestra Mozart’s young professionals tells us plenty about his <Abbado’s> genius as an orchestral trainer. And his rapport with the mercurial Argerich…is audible in every bar…In the C major concerto, No. 25, Argerich’s light, playful attack is immediately apparent; so is the orchestra’s suavity.”
Here is the Album Sampler of Martha Argerich and Claudio Abbado performing Mozart’s Piano Concertos:
And next, here is the hugely difficult Strauss “Burleske” played in an unforgettable performance by Martha Argerich, with the Berliner Filharmoniker, conducted by Maestro Abbado:
Tags: Claudio Abbado, Martha Argerich, Mozart, Strauss, concertos, Burleske
