Complete Mozart Piano Concertos

[porcy62]

Since I want it on vinyl I am unsure of wich I should get:

Anda/Mozarteum on Dg or Brendel/Marinner on Philips.

Any thoughts?

Edited March 30, 2007 by porcy62

[Chuck Nessa]

Forget famous pianists. If you want a 20th century version (different than the original instrument crowd) I suggest the Naxos series by Jeno Jando.

REALLY!

Anyone wanting the Uchida/Tate version, email me. I will send it for "postage".

[Joe G]

[Chuck Nessa]

JJ is dandy, & superior to many many many more 'branded' names... i DID just notice Porcy asked for vinyl, which limits the field somewhat... i'd still say no Brendel or Anda. "integrales" are eluding me but look for any--

Artur Schnabel or

Edwin Fischer

for starters... do i dare suggest Moravec on Supraphon vinyl? probably not.

no comment on Uchida/Tate except i'm not sure who gets the better deal-- Chuck for unloading it or whoever gets it for postage.

edc

Once again I echo my daughter Clementine.

[porcy62]

I'll look for Schnabel and Fischer. Thanks!

BTW I have a Michelangeli's live on DG (cd) playing n 20 e 27, but i don't play it very often.

Edited March 31, 2007 by porcy62

[Bol]

I really like Brendel. (I hope I do not get abused for that.) I also recommend highly Rudolf Serkin's recordings with Abbado on DG. Not complete, but most of the late concertos.

[J.A.W.]

I really like Brendel. (I hope I do not get abused for that.)

Liking certain classical performances, like Brendel's Mozart (and his Beethoven, for that matter), certainly seems to be a big no-no on this forum. There is a strong "taste-police" here

Edited March 31, 2007 by J.A.W.

[Chuck Nessa]

I really like Brendel. (I hope I do not get abused for that.)

Liking certain classical performances, like Brendel's Mozart (and his Beethoven, for that matter), certainly seems to be a big no-no on this forum. There is a strong "taste-police" here

No "taste police" here, just strong opinions. I think that is great! We never grow if we all agree. What a friggin' dull world it would be if we all posted "Brilliant!" to any member said anything. We have a bunch of people here with many different perspectives and experiences. We should rejoice in that and challenge ourselves when something is mentioned and we don't agree.

Back to Brendel and Mozart. For my taste, the Philips recordings are too "mannered". I prefer the "what the hell" recordings of his youth on Vox despite the limited orchestras and sound. My opinion of Brendel's Mozart also extends to the rest of his catalog. I do have all the Vox recordings and like most of them without calling most of them "great". The Philips recordings are interesting and well recorded.

Edited April 1, 2007 by Chuck Nessa

[Joe G]

Yes, and let me clarify that my rolleyes smiley was in reference to this comment only:

no comment on Uchida/Tate except i'm not sure who gets the better deal-- Chuck for unloading it or whoever gets it for postage.

edc

...Since I'm the lucky one. I just want to have the concerti to start with.

[Bol]

No "taste police" here, just strong opinions. I think that is great! We never grow if we all agree. What a friggin' dull world it would be if we all posted "Brilliant!" to any member said anything. We have a bunch of people here with many different perspectives and experiences. We should rejoice in that and challenge ourselves when something is mentioned and we don't agree.

Back to Brendel and Mozart. For my taste, the Philips recordings are too "mannered". I prefer the "what the hell" recordings of his youth on Vox despite the limited orchestras and sound. My opinion of Brendel's Mozart also extends to the rest of his catalog. I do have all the Vox recordings and like most of them without calling most of them "great". The Philips recordings are interesting and well recorded.

Perhaps Chuck and I are looking for different qualities in these recordings. What I like and admire in Brendel's recordings is that more than any other pianists I know he seems to convey in his performances the overall architecture of the pieces he is playing. This is most apparent in some of the Romantic pieces -- esp. Liszt. Whereas so many others tend to just emote, Brendel seems to build. Occasionally, I like sturm und drang too. Then I may listen to Annie Fischer. But I like Brendel most of all.

By the way, the Beethoven sonatas by Brendel's student Paul Lewis, which are coming out these days, are also very good. They are more contemplative than Brendel's. But Lewis has the same concern for architecture that I like.

Edited April 1, 2007 by Bol

[alocispepraluger102]

i attended an uchida mozart concert.

will i be banned from organissimo?

[BruceH]

I really like Brendel. (I hope I do not get abused for that.) I also recommend highly Rudolf Serkin's recordings with Abbado on DG. Not complete, but most of the late concertos.

I'm a big fan of Serkin.

[shaft]

The Brendels are truly great!!!

/Shaft

PS Serkin does really nice with Beethoven Piano Concertos on Telarc label. Emil Gileils is great for the sonatas on DG. Look no further!

[Peter Friedman]

I have heard quite a few pianists play the Mozart piano concertos. I personally find the Perahia recordings my favorites overall. There is an elegant quality to the way Perahia approaches the Mozart concertos that for me speaks to the times and environment during which these pieces were composed and performed. Some might think the forte-piano would be a better choice, but I have never developed a taste for the sound of that instrument as compared to the modern piano.

[Ron S]

Why is Perahia such a pariah? (Someone had to say it. ) I also enjoy Murray's set.

[Larry Kart]

Flying in the face of two fire-breathing dragons (Chuck and Clem), I like Uchida in Mozart just fine -- concerti and solo piano works -- but then I have a probably odd view of how the "language" of Mozart's piano music works, one that Uchidia perhaps shares. Briefly, it's based on the paradox of creating an almost literally singing (i.e. vocal in quality) line by accepting or embracing the less-than-vocal nature of the piano (esp. the piano of Mozart's time, though I had this thought prior to the HIP movement) in such a way that one comes close to overcoming the instrument's non-vocal nature in effect while one is also perpetually acknowledging that this is being accomplished by other means, imitatively and through artifice. That is, a sense of "on-off" pulsation -- rhythmic and timbral -- seems to me to lie at the heart of virtually every phrase of Mozartean writing for the piano, as though everything were based on a sometimes implicit, sometimes explicit trill. When the actual succession of pitches in a phrase is not literally trill-like (which is of course almost always the case after a while, or the music wouldn't get anywhere) a sense of inner trill-like pulsation can and should remain present, like a heartbeat -- and from that pulsation moving outwards you get the long singing line, while knowing that that singing quality is forever built on top of and out of mosaic-like bits of "on-" and "off"-ness. If so, again, you get in Mozart's piano writing that dramatic, paradoxical doubleness of effect -- the awareness that the songlike quality is a matter not of nature being true to itself but of nature being "created" through artifice. Or so it seems to me, and I think to my pal Mitsuko.

BTW, all this pretty much changes after Mozart.

[Larry Kart]

P.S. One of the most marvelous examples of all this at work is the Piano-Violin Sonata K. 526 (I have Radu Lupu-Szymon Goldberg). In fact, especially in the last movement, there are places where the "naturally" singing violin responds to the singing artifice of the piano by in turn imitating the piano's natural on-off pulsation/timbral colorations. Also, to push it a fair bit further, you could say that what happens to the male-female pairs of lovers in "Cosi Fan Tutti" is a dramatic extension of the same (or a similar) principle.

[Epithet]

[...]

Yeah, but, how's about a little Gould to elide those cringing cadences?

Edited April 11, 2007 by Epithet

[Hot Ptah]

I have heard these works for literally hundreds (possibly thousands?) of hours, as they are among my wife's favorites. I have repeatedly heard the Uchida, Perahia, Gould, Brendel, Schiff, Schnabel, Serkin and Gileils recordings discussed on this thread, together with several other versions by pianists not named yet.

My favorite is the Perahia. I also love Perahia's recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations.

I like the Uchida version of Mozart's Piano Concertos very much, and if you are still giving her set away, Chuck Nessa, I will take it. We have it on cassette (purchased in the 1980s).

I am happy to learn of some versions new to me, and look forward to exploring the Staier, Pletnev, Jando and Fischer.

[alankin]

On Popmarket.com today: Murray Perahia - Mozart: The Complete Piano Concertos - 12 CDs for $29.99.

http://www.popmarket.com/details/5873177

[Larry Kart]

FWIW, further thought and experience has turned me away from Uchida. Sorry if I misled anyone.

[Bigshot]

Perahia is my favorite, but I have a certain nostalgic fondness for Geza Anda because the Elvira Madigan LP was one of my first classical records.

[B. Goren.]

FWIW, further thought and experience has turned me away from Uchida. Sorry if I misled anyone.

What is your favorite performance now Larry? Perahia? Brendel?

[Larry Kart]

In the sonatas, Vlado Perlemuter. In the concertos, Uchida still sits on the shelves. I'm not happy about that but don't seem to have the energy to start over. Don't imagine there's a complete set for me, so I 'd have to do it concerto by concerto. A past encounter with Perahia's set was not to my taste.

[MomsMobley]

Uchida SHITS on the shelves-- she owes you, man, more than you owe us. You just posted on a bad day-- listen to three Don Ewell records of your choice as penance.

And while Perahia has made some decent recordings (Bartok, some Bach), the Mozart is not among them. AVOID AT ANY COST.

gentle/genteel Mozart is a sham/shame any way you slice it but if you gotta go softer, Andras Schiff + Sandor Vegh is superlative bc Vegh is such a terrific conductor. Schiff ain't horrible but there's a lot more than he offers.

For sets, Vivian Sofronitzki is best-- being reissued cheap even as I speak-- with Malcom Bilson a tried alternative tho' as ever in Mozart, Gardiner cond. can be glib. AVOID Immeerseel, the Perahia of period instruments here.

Anda was and remains horrible-- the kind of shit that gave Mozart a bad name in the first place. Brendel isn't terrible but he's never better or more interesting than many others.

Get anything Schnabel, Pletnev, Staier, Zitterbart and, if you see it for a decent price, the Rudolph Buchbiner integrale on Profil, which might be best modern instrument set ever.