Originally issued by Calig Classics, Rudolf Buchbinder’s Mozart concerto cycle gains a new lease on life and hopefully a wider audience on Günter Hänssler’s new Profil label. David Hurwitz succinctly characterized the outstanding interpretive and sonic virtues for two out of the nine individual discs that make up this boxed set (type Q7733 and Q7958 in Search Reviews). The remaining volumes prove equally distinctive on every level. What gorgeous, cultured ensemble playing the Vienna Symphony contributes! The strings, for starters, always sing out sweetly with a wide variety of articulations, inflections, and vibratos at their disposal. Furthermore, Mozart’s innovative woodwind writing sounds unusually vibrant and full of personality, while the brass and drums convey a strong yet never overbearing presence throughout.
Helped by a beautifully regulated concert grand, Buchbinder’s intelligent virtuosity, superb ear for color, and sixth sense for hitting upon the right tempo are suffused with strokes of spontaneity ranging from unexpected rubatos to tasteful, imaginative ornamentation. You could go on for hours citing all the newly minted phrases, insightful instrumental balances, and moments of pure chamber-music-like give and take. For example, the G major K. 453’s third movement seems to be played for maximum timbral contrast from one variation the next, and then there’s the physical delight Buchbinder takes in pointing up the K. 450 finale’s off-beat accents and tricky octave runs.
The so-called Coronation concerto K. 537’s surface pomp transcends its usual glib presentation in the way Buchbinder and his musicians shape the outer movements’ astonishing harmonic tangents, and the C minor K. 491 concerto’s slow movement benefits from a more forthright and urgent reading than customary in Mozart’s concertante passages. It’s also refreshing to hear K. 595’s slow movement felt as two beats to the bar, as opposed to the heavier four that characterize one too many slow and spineless performances in the name of “spirituality”. (The finale also is brisker than usual, and meaningfully shaped to boot.)
Buchbinder’s achievement is even more remarkable when you consider that these are live recordings, although the beautifully balanced engineering gives little (if any) hint of an audience present. Indeed, I’d go so far as to say that Buchbinder has given us the finest all-around Mozart concerto cycle on disc (at least since Schiff/Vegh on Decca), a reference edition guaranteed to give immense musical pleasure for years to come. [8/8/2005]
