Paul Bailey’s Testament transfers of the three Mozart concertos Solomon recorded in the early 1950s boast a tonal richness and ambient bloom that supercedes EMI’s 1991 editions of the same performances. In fact, the sound improves to the point where details of color and inflection within the pianist’s downscaled dynamic parameters are unmasked to revelatory effect. In the final statement of K. 450’s third-movement main theme, I’ve never been so aware of Solomon’s deftly varied articulation, nor how tellingly he voices the piano’s accompaniment patterns so that Mozart’s wonderfully built-up horn writing gets its due. Under Otto Ackermann’s sympathetic leadership, the Philharmonia Orchestra’s robust woodwinds and sweetly singing strings are captured in excellently balanced sonics for their vintage.
Solomon and Walter Gieseking both recorded the K. 488 and K. 491 concertos for EMI around the same time. Of the two, I lean toward Solomon’s more firmly etched yet similarly rippling, jewel-like passagework. In the C minor concerto, Solomon plays Saint-Saëns’ flashy yet effective cadenza while Gieseking takes on the more stylish Hummel option. Herbert Menges uncovers important woodwind details in the A major concerto that Herbert von Karajan (for Gieseking) glosses over, such as the slow movement’s plaintive bassoon commentaries. If you love Solomon, you’ll surely want this disc.
