Comparison Recordings:
Philip Han, Paul Freeman, Philh. O.
Brilliant Classics Box 92112
K.453, Murray Perahia, ECO CBS MK 36686
K.453, Artur Rubinstein, Wallenstein,
RCA SO RCA 63061
When I was a teenager,
apart from Artur Rubinstein’s recording
of No. 21 and Ingrid Haebler’s No. 13,
I didn’t at all like Mozart piano concerti.
Artists tended to miniaturise them and
recording engineers provided distant,
monotonous, uninvolving recorded sound.
In the last decades these works have
literally exploded with brilliant, exciting
recordings, and here we have another
series which promises to be exceptional.
By all reports when
Mozart played his sonatas and concertos
he paid scant attention to what he had
written on the page, adding frills,
trills, cadenzas and extra notes at
will. This delighted the audience while
driving his page-turner and the orchestra
mad. In contemporary performances and
recordings, however, the literal note
from the master is observed as holy
writ and no one dares depart from it,
except in some cases to perpetuate bad
habits of interpretation learned from
generations of teachers.
No one but Matthias
Kirschnereit, that is. He has fun with
this music by adding an ornament here
and there, departing a tiny bit from
the written text, now and then slipping
just slightly off the beat, all in the
service of the lyrical phrase and the
vigorous ritornello. On the other
hand he uses Mozart’s cadenzas and carefully
observes Mozart’s distinction among
various kinds of ornaments in the scores
something many other soloists neglect
to do. Thus he produces what is probably
a much more authentic performance, much
more like the way Mozart would have
played, than some others do. You can
find out more about Kirschnereit at
www.matthias-kirschnereit.de
The conductor also
observes precisely Mozart’s notation
in regard ornaments, and also the correct
balance between winds and strings within
the orchestra, these in contrast to
some recent recordings, even some marked
"original instruments." In
addition orchestra and conductor provide
an interesting, colourful, transparent,
but firm support for the soloist. It
is difficult to find words for the delight
I feel when hearing this orchestra’s
crisp and delightful Mozart sound.
The Bamberg Symphony
Orchestra has a double name, but is
one orchestra, having recently been
honoured by the State of Bavaria with
the extra title.
My observation just
on the basis of this disk is that Matthias
Kirschnereit ranks, along with Christian
Zacharias, as the finest Mozart piano
concerto pianist of this age. Although
Zacharias has recorded many of the concertos
with various conductors and orchestra,
his complete concerto series on MDG
as soloist and conductor has been stalled
at "volume 1" for several
years now, whereas Kirschnereit is set
to release "volume 6" in this
series soon. So, this series may actually
be completed and if so, on the evidence
of this disk, even in comparison with
the illustrious names listed at the
beginning of this review, it has the
potential to be the finest cycle of
Mozart Piano concertos ever recorded.
Paul Shoemaker
Matthias Kirschnereit, piano 
