Among the new issues from Philips honoring the 70th birthday of Alfred Brendel comes this new recording of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 22 in E-flat K. 482, paired with No. 27 in B-flat K. 595. The big E-flat concerto’s astounding and magisterial opening ritornello gets regal treatment from Charles Mackerras and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra (an ensemble Brendel clearly enjoys working with), and the drama and nobility are deftly and powerfully matched by Brendel himself. A special and unique point of interest concerns the two cadenzas, both Brendel’s own, which seem to show him as an ever more acerbic and provocative innovator. The cunning juxtapositioning of first and second subject themes from the opening allegro is gripping. Like Perahia (Sony), but especially Géza Anda (DG), whose account of K. 482 closely mirrors Brendel’s view of the andante, the classical proportions and divertimento-like feel of those passages in which the soloist supports the winds is movingly intimate. The finale, too, is magnificently and spaciously done, and again Brendel’s cadenza is ingenious.
It’s tempting to suggest that this new version of K. 595 begins where Brendel’s earlier Philips reading with Marriner and the Academy of St. Martins left off; but that’s a major understatement, for Brendel’s concept of the work has undergone radical overhaul. As with his earlier version he uses Mozart’s own cadenzas, but the general outlook is more questioning and exploratory, with less of a sense of resignation in this valedictory–and most enigmatic–of Mozart concertos. In the opening allegro, Brendel highlights the unsettled chromaticism of the scoring more vividly than you’ve ever heard it before, teasing out every paradox and ironic aside with more wit than sadness at times–and the central larghetto also is done entirely without sentiment. The finale, again briskly played and wonderfully fluid, never seems to hint at finality, leaving you feeling Brendel has plenty more to say about this amazing work. Both accounts are exceptional, not just for the strength and vitality of Brendel’s pianism, but also for the fertility of intellect that underlies these startlingly youthful and provocative interpretations.
