Artur Schnabel plays Mozart Concertos

Advantages: Classic Brendel, good sound
Disadvantages: Classic Brendel

...After having spent quite some time, both in the studio and the concert hall, concentrating exclusively on the Beethoven Piano Sonatas and Piano Concertos, Brendel, whilst always being limited to some, (not inconsiderable, it seems) extent by physical problems in and around the areas of his back and arms, is now free to explore other music avenues. This is the second disk of Brendel's Mozart with which we have been presented over the recent past; the other being his account of two of the concertos. Here we have performances of 3 of the unaccompanied sonatas. Brendel has long been considered as being a Mozartian of zest and insight. But, for me at least, his interprtations of this Master can seem a little quirky. Its as if he doesn't, in some way, relate to the personality and musical language of Mozart with quite the same success as he... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful

Advantages: A discovery unforgettable
Disadvantages: Nothing

...difficult in the same time. I try to do it: 1) He make a full immersion in historycal background of Chopin; 2) He loved to study hand-written Chopin's music; 3) Like he said, he stopped to learn a work when "sounds flow in my blood". 4) An intelligent control by means of mind and heart. He plays Chopin's Nocturnes suspended in "time": night is not only darkness, mystery or passions; night in Chopin is without time also... This Arturo understood and now we can hear a strange dimension of time. Of course, there are passions, loves, cryes but these are nothing...in front of a world without time. Often Nocturnes seem lullabyes: it is true! But they send to sleep the death not the listeners! Then, these musics are a victory on the death! Other pianists have played these Chopin's works: Horowitz, Schnabel, Pollini, Richter... Some years... Read review

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Advantages: a new take on a familiar warhorse
Disadvantages: is it worth full price?

...It's unlikely that any music lover who has a good recording of Beethoven's violin concerto on CD (say: Perlman, Grumiaux or Szigeti) would ever say to him or herself: 'boy, I wonder what that sounds like on the clarinet'. In fact, the only people who might would be clarinetists, for they tend to feel (mistakenly, as it happens)that there just isn't enough original repertoire written for their instrument. So here, spanking new, is a Deutsche Grammophon CD offering us an original work in Mozart's Clarinet Concerto and an arrangement of the Beethoven prepared by Russian pianist/conductor Mikhail Pletnev. The soloist is Michael Collins, who plays the familiar Mozart on his basset horn with all the joy and panache we expect. The Beethoven is a different cup of tea. It's difficult to listen to the famous melodies without hearing the fiddle (or... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful