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MOZART
Piano Concertos  No 20 K466 & No 24  491
Clara Haskil with Orchestre des Concerts Lamoureux Igor Markevitch
Philips 464 718-2 [60 mins]
Crotchet
   Amazon UK    Amazon US

It is good to have Clara Haskil's performances of the D minor & C minor concertos back in circulation in the Philips 50 collection. They date from 1960 and she met her accidental death a month later. It is an enduring memory to have heard this frail elderly woman at the BBC's Maida Vale Studios, her playing, robust, immensely subtle and delicate too. Her posture was bowed because of spinal disease and she later had to cope also with a tumour on the optic nerve. She had suffered appalling ill health, yet remained indomitable in pursuing a career which had made her one of the best-loved pianists of her time.

These are honest, scrupulous accounts, balancing clarity with a feeling for form and expression. The sound is satisfactory in this re-mastered CD and whilst it is unlikely to be a first choice for these popular concertos, Haskil's interpretations are well worth having.

Peter Grahame Woolf

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