Mozart: Piano Concertos 17 & 24

Album review

These interpretations of Mozart by Benjamin Hochman – a musician born in Jerusalem in 1980 and a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and of the Mannes College of Music in New York where he studied with Claude Frank and Richard Goode – could never be accused of dwelling on the past. Here, he has surrounded himself with the English Chamber Orchestra, an ensemble that he himself conducts and which has dedicated itself many times to this essential corpus of the piano concerto, for example with Murray Perahia for CBS in the 1980s, or with Daniel Barenboim for EMI twenty years before. For this session, recorded at St. John Smith Square in London on the 1st and 2nd of April 2019, Hochman has chosen two of the most renowned concertos, the tragic 24th and the more cheerful and lyrically demure 17th. These vigorous interpretations may surprise listeners by the apparent lack of feeling and also by the clear polyphonies, almost as if obsessed with honouring the memory of J.S. Bach. Over the course of the 2019-2020 season, Benjamin Hochman is focussing primarily on Mozart and is performing a complete collection of the Sonatas at the Israel Conservatory in Tel Aviv, as well as several other Mozart recitals on various other stages. He is a pianist that would be interesting to hear in France, also especially playing Schubert, who remains one of his favourite composers. © Qobuz