Mozart, Piano, Lan Lan

Originally released between 1976 and 2007, the offerings in this eight-CD box set represent Maurizio Pollini's exemplary concerto recordings for Deutsche Grammophon, including all of Ludwig van Beethoven's cycle, the two piano concertos by Johannes Brahms, and six of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's masterpieces in performances that rank among the pianist's finest.

Recorded over 13 years between 1975 and 1988, Murray Perahia's cycle of the complete piano concertos of Mozart, including the concert rondos and double concertos, remains perhaps the most enduring monument to his art. What is it about Perahia's art, some skeptics might ask, that is worth enduring? For one thing, as this 12-disc set amply demonstrates, there is his incredible tone.

A 10 CD Box set with 23 Beautiful Mozart Piano Concertos. Alfred Brendel playing piano. Imogen Cooper also on piano. Accompanied by Academy of St. Martin-In-The-Fields orchestra. Conducted by Neville Marriner. This set is wonderful: Brendel is at the peak of his art, the conductor and the Orchestra are perfect, the sound is clear and old fashionable, very recommended.

Originally released between 1976 and 2007, the offerings in this eight-CD box set represent Maurizio Pollini's exemplary concerto recordings for Deutsche Grammophon, including all of Ludwig van Beethoven's cycle, the two piano concertos by Johannes Brahms, and six of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's masterpieces in performances that rank among the pianist's finest.

The first complete recording of W.A. Mozart’s piano sonatas on the composer’s own fortepiano (Anton Walter, 1782). This comprehensive, 7-CD boxed set also comprises unfinished fragments by the Austrian composer, here completed by American pianist and Mozart-scholar Robert Levin in consideration of Mozart’s idioms and the compositional mannerisms of his era. Robert Levin’s interpretations of the piano sonatas, too, are informed by the performance practice customs of the First Viennese School, including improvised elements and decorations in the repeats.

"The sonatas of Mozart are unique," said Artur Schnabel. "They are too easy for children, and too difficult for artists." It was performances like Mikhail Pletnev's that inspired Schabel's maxim. Pletnev's technique is awe-inspiring, and the smooth, room-sized sound he gets out of a grand piano promise wonderful things as one begins listening to the disc. But there's a certain refusal to fool with the music, a Zen detachment perhaps, that's necessary for a really good Mozart performance, and Pletnev does too much tinkering.

It's a recording that just a few years ago would have been mainstream: a "name" pianist (albeit one much less well known in the U.S. than elsehwere), who has been playing Mozart's piano concertos since childhood, joins forces with a name conductor with whom she has frequently collaborated, leading a modern-instrument orchestra of some 70 players, with the results released on a major international-conglomerate label. Now it's distinctly unusual. But lo, there's value in the old ways. Portuguese-Brazilian pianist Maria-João Pires is a lifelong Mozart specialist, but she still has new things to say in two of Mozart's most popular piano concertos. You can chalk it up to her Buddhist outlook if you like: her readings of the Piano Concerto No. 27 in B flat major, K. 595, and Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K. 466, might be described as detached without being lifeless. Her approach is most startling in the Piano Concerto No. 20, where her no-drama shaping of the material runs sharply counter to type. Sample the piano's entrance in the first movement, where it offers a twisting, tense elaboration of the main theme that is far removed from its source material. Generally pianists use this to raise the tension level, but Pires lets the unusually shaped, chromatic line speak for itself with fine effect.

The Portuguese pianist Maria Joa?o Pires has long been associated with the music of Mozart. Her delicacy of touch, vibrancy of phrasing and sense of fantasy mark her out as one of the elect who can touch his keyboard music without coarsening or sim- plifying it. She has made two complete cycles of the sonatas; reissued here is the first one, from the days in the 1970s when she first appeared on the international scene and won over listeners with a graceful purity of approach that left more famous names trailing in her wake.The later cycle brought added refinement, but anyone who is captivated by this still undervalued corpus – too difficult for beginners, yet scorned by many professionals in search of gaudier glories – will want to hear this set.

Involving, as it does, three master musicians and a fine chamber orchestra this was never likely to be be other than rewarding. It may not correspond with the ways of playing Mozart at the beginning of the twenty-first century which are fashionable at the beginning of the twenty-first century, but it has virtues – such as high intelligence, sympathy, certainty of purpose, grace, alertness of interplay – which transcend questions of performance practice. Looking at the names of the pianists above, we might be surprised by the presence of Sir Georg Solti, so used are we to thinking of him as a conductor. But the young Solti appeared in public as a pianist from the age of twelve and went on to study piano in Budapest, with Dohnányi and Bartok.

While its unpretentious cover photo and small text don't proclaim it as an important recording, Noriko Ogawa's 2012 SACD of Mozart piano sonatas is the kind of sleeper album that quietly asserts its value and convinces purely through the beauty of the music. The three piano sonatas presented here also have that kind of unassuming quality. Mozart composed them as teaching pieces, suitable for players of modest skills, yet they have become extremely popular and rank among his best loved works. Ogawa plays them with a light touch that suits their simplicity, and her interpretations of K. 330, K. 331 (famous for its Rondo alla Turca), and K. 332 are transparent and almost naïve, but for the subtlety of attack, balanced phrasing, and shaded dynamics that reveal her artistry. BIS provides nearly ideal sound quality for Ogawa, offering clean reproduction and reasonably close microphone placement that make listening effortless.