Some time ago I wrote a review of a Naïve CD entitled
fantaisie
- fantasme, featuring David Greilsammer in a very mixed recital
with Mozart’s c minor Fantasy, K475, at its centre (V5081 -
review). I concluded with the words: I wouldn’t advise rushing
out to buy this CD but I would advise you to watch out for CDs with
more unified programmes from David Greilsammer, especially if they include
Mozart.
That recommendation to watch out for an all-Mozart programme was also
based
not only on the CD in question, but also on reviews that I’d seen of
his
earlier Vanguard ATMA recording of three early piano concertos, Nos. 5, 6
and
8, K175, 238 and 246. Attempts to obtain that Vanguard recording for
review
proved futile; I didn’t realise that it was right under my nose in
the
Naxos Music Library and as a download from classicsonline.com, both in its
original
guise and on Naïve, to whom the recording has apparently been
reassigned
(V5149). Having listened to it, I can happily endorse those
recommendations
for these stylish performances, on which Greilsammer is accompanied by his
own
small-scale Suedema Ensemble. Only the rather weird cover which Naïve
have
chosen, a photograph of a caparisoned toy horse lying in the dirt minus
its
chivalric rider, seems odd.
In the meantime, however, Greilsammer has seemed less promising; he
produced
a CD of two Mozart piano concertos which Bob Briggs found disappointingly
misjudged
(Nos. 22 and 24, Naïve V5184 -
review)
and Mark Berry thought his performance of the Piano Sonata K331/300i at
the
Wigmore Hall in June 2010 utterly un-Mozartian, even anti-Mozartian (Seen
and
Heard -
review).
With his performance of the
Jeunehomme concerto here I had hoped
for
a return to something closer to his old form in Mozart. I must admit that
I
didn’t come to this new recording with a completely innocent ear, as
it’s
already been praised in at least one newspaper and it’s been the
Classic
FM Album of the Week. That only made me listen all the more closely in
case
I found myself in disagreement.
I come to this concerto with other baggage; not least the fact that
I’ve
just been listening to Mitsuko Uchida’s recent performance as
soloist
and director and re-hearing not only Alfred Brendel’s first
recording
of the work, which I reviewed some time ago (Alto), but also his version
with
the ASMF and Neville Marriner (Decca), and Imogen Cooper’s recording
(Avie):
- Decca 478 3539: The Cleveland Orchestra/Mitsuko Uchida (piano) (with
Piano
Concerto No.21 -
review
and
Download
News 2012/24)
- Musical Concepts Alto ALC1047: Alfred Brendel; Solisti di Zagreb/Antonio
Janigro
(with Piano Concerto No.14; Piano Sonata No.8) Bargain of the Month - see
review
- Decca Duo 442 5712: Alfred Brendel; Academy of St Martin in the
Fields/Neville
Marriner (with Concertos Nos. 15, 22, 25 and 27) - a very competitive
bargain
version, 2 CDs for around £8.50.
- Avie AV2100: Northern Sinfonia/Imogen Cooper (piano) (with Piano
Concerto
No.23 -
review
and September 2009
Download
Roundup
Uchida’s earlier performance with the ECO and Geoffrey Tate offers a
rival
bargain to the Brendel on another Decca Duo, 473 3132 (with Nos.14, 15, 17
and
18).
Greilsammer, who, in the notes to the Naïve release of Nos. 5, 6 and
8,
writes of those works as Mozart in search of a distinctive voice, includes
the
Jeunehomme concerto at the heart of his new recording as an example
of
‘Mozart in-between’, the declared theme of the album. Whilst
it
seems to me that Mozart was constantly in transition in several senses,
K271
is a particularly good example; it’s his first really accomplished
piano
concerto, encompassing a variety of moods. All four rival recordings under
consideration
make that clear. Incidentally, we now know that the title
Jeunehomme
is a corruption of Jenamy, the name of the person for whom the work was
intended.
I’m certainly not about to challenge the high opinion of the
concerto;
Einstein (the musicologist) even went so far as to dub it Mozart’s
Eroica
in an encomium printed in the Sony booklet. Nor is Greilsammer’s
view
of the music as a work in transition implausible - though he had proved
himself
very capable of writing some attractive music in those earlier concertos
which
Greilsammer has already recorded, at 21 in the year that he composed this
concerto
(1777) he had come of age legally and musically.
Brendel on Alto is the oldest recording under consideration but the sound
has
been made remarkably fresh in the new transfer. The couplings are slightly
less
enticing: Piano Concerto No.14 is a work on a smaller scale - it even
exists
in a cut-down version for piano and string quartet, recorded by Jos van
Immerseel
and Musica Eterna on a highly recommendable Channel Classics CD of Nos.
11,
13 and 14, CCS0990 - but Brendel makes it sound a little gem and the
addition
of the Piano Sonata No.8 brings the playing time up to over 70 minutes. At
its
bargain price, this deserves to be in every collection whatever other
version
of the
Jeunehomme concerto you may have, as I hope I made clear in
my
original review. It sounds better than another budget-price Brendel
recording,
of Mozart: Piano Concerto No.17, No.27 (for two pianos) and the Piano
Sonata
for two pianos, with Walter Klien as partner in the duo works, which is
also
recommendable, despite some less than ideal sound (Regis RRC1388 -
review).
No excuses at all need be made for the Decca Duo CD which contains the
Brendel/Marriner
recording; it’s a notable bargain, as is the companion 2-CD set of
Nos.
19, 20, 21, 23, 24 and two Concert Rondos (442 2692). I would, however,
steer
you most of all in the direction of Imogen Cooper and the new Mitsuko
Uchida
recording. That’s formidable competition, but Greilsammer and his
team
are equal to the challenge in a convincing display of the extent to which
he
is back on Mozart form. I don’t know whether he had his concept of
Mozart
in-between two extremes of mood and expression as he was playing the music
-
I suspect that he was too involved in the performance to have the concept
constantly
in mind - but this performance illustrates the thesis at least as well as
the
benchmarks that I’ve mentioned.
If I hesitate to endorse this new recording unreservedly it’s
because
it comes, like
fantaisie-fantasme, as part of a mish-mash of a
programme.
One reviewer has suggested that the whole is more than the sum of its
parts;
my view is entirely the opposite. As a concept album the programme depends
on
there being the contrast of light and shade which is stressed in the notes
and
also of development in progress. It’s not hard to find light and
shade
in Mozart’s music - it’s hardly a new concept - and his music
was
‘in-between’ those opposites throughout his life; I’m
just
not convinced that this album offers a good opportunity to demonstrate
these
things or that it provides a worthy frame for the performance of the
concerto.
The CD opens with a performance of the Symphony No.23, K181, which dates
from
four years before the piano concerto and is hardly an example of Mozart
breaking
through any barriers or combining different emotions. Much as I revere his
music,
the early symphonies hardly stand comparison with even the earliest of
Haydn’s;
if I were to choose a breakthrough symphony with a good balance of
differing
moods, it would be No.25, K183/173dB, though that too dates from 1773,
thus
neatly destroying my thesis of Mozart maturing at 21. Even Symphony No.29,
K201/186a,
which would be my next nomination for a mature symphony, dates from as
early
as 1774.
Be that as it may, Greilsammer directs a convincing performance of No.23,
making
the symphony sound more powerful than I remember from performances
directed
by Charles Mackerras (Telarc CD80217), Adam Fischer (DaCapo 6.220542) and
Nicholas
Ward (Naxos 8.550876), perhaps as a result of the timpani parts which
Greilsammer
has added.
We don’t know the exact dates of Mozart’s music for the play
Thamos,
King of Egypt, but it seems to be roughly contemporary with the
Jeunehomme
concerto. The two short excerpts included here are attractive and
stylishly
performed, but there’s not much to get your teeth into; they are
heard
to greater effect on a programme of similar light-weight Mozart such as
the
Decca Eloquence reissue of Peter Maag’s classic performance of four
items
from
Thamos on 476 9702 (with Symphony No.38, the
Lucio
Silla
overture and a selection of German Dances). It doesn’t help that the
two
items here are separated by the Denis Schuler work in a very different
style,
of which more anon.
Even more bizarre is the decision to end the CD with a counter-tenor aria
from
Mitridate. Granted that both the castrato voice and the
opera
seria
were on their way out when Mozart wrote this opera, so there’s a
sense
of the dichotomy that Greilsammer was aiming for in constructing the
programme.
That said, I wasn’t convinced that this was an ideal way to end the
disc.
Lawrence Zazzo sings competently but his voice is a trifle squally by
comparison
with Andreas Scholl who, accompanied by the OAE and Roger Norrington, also
gives
the music a little more time to breathe (
Heroes, Decca 466 1962).
It
would have been helpful, too, to have had the libretto of
Venga
pur.
As for Denis Schuler’s
In-between I can say only that I wish
that
it hadn’t come between the two excerpts from
Thamos.
It’s
so far outside my comfort zone that it may well stop me from reaching for
this
CD ever again, thereby confining my consumption of the
Jeunehomme
concerto
to the Brendel (x2), Uchida (x2) and Cooper performances that I’ve
listed.
That’s a shame because the quality of the Mozart performances and
recording
on the new Sony release is such that this might well have been destined
for
frequent outings but there are so many other excellent versions to from
which
to choose. I imagine that it will be only a minority of Mozart-lovers that
even
like the Schuler let alone warm to it.
Brian Wilson
Masterwork Index:
Mozart Symphony
23 ~~ Piano concerto
9
