The main interest these Mendelssohn piano concerto performances hold lies in the use of a chamber orchestra, where the composer’s marvelous woodwind writing and inventive deployment of first-chair soloists takes center stage. A particular example of what I mean can be found in the solo wind and pizzicato string interaction in the G minor first movement. At the same time, I miss the brass section’s potential for tonal richness and the shapely, robust string sonorities needed for Mendelssohn’s melodies to soar.
Elisabeth Leonskaja’s solid and seasoned accounts of the piano solo parts prove most characterful and alive in the finales, yet are a shade prosaic and generic elsewhere. Similarly well played but slightly workaday readings of nine Songs Without Words fill out the disc. The three Venetian Gondola selections drop anchor in still waters, while the pianist’s habit of rushing ahead in Spring Song’s strumming left-hand chords sometimes creates an illusion of triple rather than duple meter. It would be easier to recommend this disc without our three reference Mendelssohn Concerto choices cutting it down to size.
