Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos. 6-8

Album review

This 2024 release, which made classical best-seller charts early that year, is the next-to-last installment in a series of Mozart piano concertos by the Academy of Ancient Music that began in the 1990s, was abandoned in 2000, and was finally resumed during the COVID-19 pandemic. The collection features the unorthodox Mozart pianist Robert Levin, with various directors supplanting the original creator, Christopher Hogwood; here, keyboardist Laurence Cummings and violinist Bojan Čičić share conducting duties. There are three piano concertos, numbers six through eight, all composed in 1776. The central figure is Levin, who, as usual, contributes several novelties. One is a tangent piano. This instrument, somewhere between a fortepiano, a harpsichord, and a clavichord, is rarely heard; Mozart might have known them, although there is no evidence that he did. It is capable of modest dynamic variation, and the late 18th century instrument Levin plays here has a charming, crystalline sound. Beyond this is Levin's trademark heavy use of improvisation, which has at least some justification in what is known of Mozart's own practices; Levin improvises his own cadenzas, as Mozart certainly did, and these are attractively integrated with the main material. The Piano Concerto No. in F major for three pianos and Orchestra, K. 242, is a special and perhaps troublesome case; Levin and Cummings deploy three different keyboard instruments: Levin's tangent piano, a fortepiano (played by Ya-Fei Chuang), and a harpsichord (Cummings). This technically undemanding concerto is generally played with three similar instruments, whether modern pianos or fortepianos and the interpretation takes another step into the speculative. In general, however, this release, like its predecessors, offers fresh and thought-provoking Mozart readings.

© James Manheim /TiVo