Recording
Title: Piano Concertos 20, 23, 24, 26 & 27
Performer: Clifford Curzon, English Chamber Orchestra
Director: Benjamin Britten
Year: 1970
Length: 33 minutes
Review
Mozart's Piano concertos are something else, possibly only comparable to Beethoven's, and the concertos numbered 20 and over are particularly good, together with the no. 9 "Jeunehomme" that we had before.
They are not only particularly good but also interesting in the way that they are almost prefiguring the Romantics and particularly the other great composer of Piano Concertos, Beethoven.
Here you have a collection of three great movements, the first powerful and dark takes a while to start with the piano, which comes in solo to play the second theme, the second movement is truly a beautiful Romance, with the piano and the Orchestra playing back and forth beautifully, the third movement has an amazing Coda. So no fillers here, it is all good, but I particularly like the Romance as I am a sap.
Final Grade
9/10
Trivia
From Wikipedia:
A few days after the first performance, the composer's father, Leopold, visiting in Vienna, wrote to his daughter Nannerl about her brother's recent success: [I heard] an excellent new piano concerto by Wolfgang, on which the copyist was still at work when we got there, and your brother didn't even have time to play through the rondo because he had to oversee the copying operation.
Mitsuko Uchida plays and conducts the Romance, she is a bit freaky, but such a great player:
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