KV 85

“Anima Eterna’s stunning playing in the tuttis is perfectly balanced with the fluent playing of Immerseel” Gramophone Magazine
This set of Mozart's concertos for solo piano, recorded in 1990 and 1991, was one of the earlier widely publicized traversals of the Mozart cycle to be performed on historical instruments, in this case a modern copy of a Viennese Walter fortepiano. The chief virtue of the set is that Belgian fortepianist Jos van Immerseel and his Anima Eterna ensemble work together in extremely well-coordinated readings.

French pianist Jonathan Fournelm, 27, has won this year’s Queen Elisabeth Piano Competition. Second Prize was awarded to Rusian pianist Sergei Redkin and third Prize to Keigo Mukawa (Japan).

Mozart Double Piano Concertos is Arthur and Lucas Jussen’s first orchestral recording, featuring two of the most famous works composed for two pianos. Ever since they performed for the Dutch queen in 2005 at the ages of just 12 and 8 years old and becoming the first Dutch artists to sign with the historic Yellow Label, Deutsche Grammophon, the Jussen brothers are regarded as something of Dutch national treasures.

From the mid-seventeenth century onwards, the overture became an orchestral piece intended to precede a large-scale dramatic work. This recording brings together twelve overtures from Mozart’s operas. They foreshadow the action, sometimes stylistically, sometimes by quoting themes that will appear later, to create a dramatic impression before we even see anything on stage – think of the memorable overtures to Don Giovanni and Die Zauberflöte. The twelve overtures brought together here cover 21 years of Mozart’s career: from Mitridate, composed when he was just 14, which testifies to the young composer’s familiarity with the galant style then in vogue, to La Clemenza di Tito (1791), the high point of his work in the opera seria genre that was to disappear with him, not forgetting masterpieces such as Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Le nozze di Figaro and Così fan tutte.

This issue completes Cooper’s and Podger’s collected recordings of Mozart’s music for keyboard and violin. At first sight, Volumes 7 and 8 might seem to consist of leftovers – Vol 8 devoted to a set of six sonatas (K10-15) written in London when Mozart was eight, and Vol 7, apart from the two variation sets composed shortly after he settled in Vienna, containing a sonata dating from his 1766 stay in The Hague, plus two fragments, completed after Mozart’s death by Maximilian Stadler. In the event, however, both CDs are full of interest.