Mozart
Piano Concertos K242*; K315f**; K365*
Robert Levin (keyboards), *Ya-Fei Chuang (keyboards), **Bojan Čičić (violin); Academy of Ancient Music/Laurence Cummings
AAM AAM043 60:48 mins
The exhilarating completion of the Robert Levin/Academy of Ancient Music Mozart piano concerto series goes from strength to strength: this is Volume 11, with just two more to come. There’s a curiosity here in the two-piano version of the three-piano concerto, K242 (which will be in Vol. 12) composed in 1776 for the Lodron family – it’s amazing how little is lost as Mozart condenses the writing. The performance sparkles, but there’s no avoiding the fact that the material here is slightly four-square. The most delectable sounds from the fortepianos are in the buzzy, chirruping cadenza in the central movement, and while the two keyboards are perfectly matched by Levin (who here plays first) and Chuang (second), one might relish a touch more spatial separation.
The contrast with the more familiar two-piano concerto in E flat, K365 could scarcely be more striking: here is magnificently mature Mozart, brilliantly articulated with light-footed grace. Chuang is now piano one: just hear the subtlety with which she nudges the music into the minor in bar 208 of the first movement, and the precise vigour with which she and Levin duel in the C minor episode of the finale.
To complete the album, a single movement K315f featuring piano and solo violin, which Mozart abandoned, perhaps daunted by balance issues? Levin has rescued it with typical inventiveness and he and Bojan Čičič play with flair. Nicholas Kenyon