Angela Hewitt, Hannu Lintu - Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos. 17 & 27 (2013)

Angela Hewitt turns to two of Mozart's greatest and most popular concertos for her latest album. Together with her frequent collaborators, the Orchestra da Camera di Mantova and brilliant Finnish conductor Hannu Lintu, she presents these works in performances which are both elegantly stylish and profoundly felt. This release is completed by a personal reflection on the music by Hewitt herself in the accompanying booklet.

The success of her performances of this Concerto and the G major, K453, rests in part on her feeling for Mozart's remarkable harmonic and tonal range in both works. The listener does not need to know technically what is happening, but does not need to appreciate through intelligent performance how Mozart can astonish, or subtly surprise , or excite, or even shock when he leaps and swerve into an unexpected key and gives a thrill of pleasure or sends a shiver down ones s spine. It is brilliantly done, and this is a brilliant performance all round.

On her previous disc of early Mozart piano concertos (CDA67840), Angela Hewitt directed the Orchestra da Camera di Mantova from the keyboard. Here in two later ones the G major of 1784 and the B flat major of Mozart's final year, 1791 she cedes the --conducting to one of her regular collaborators, Hannu Lintu. The sound is wonderfully clean and focused, with an ideal balance between Hewitt's customary Fazioli piano and the orchestra. The range of expression that the performances encompass can be appreciated in the theme and variations of the G major concerto's finale. Here Lintu starts the movement with light-footed grace, using minimal vibrato on the strings, Hewitt taking her cue with playing of elegance and buoyancy. With each variation, the nature of the playing changes, from jovially robust to effervescently fluid or quietly lyrical. The attention to musical contrast and stylistic integrity is similar throughout. Hewitt's own illuminating notes in the booklet are a bonus, making this a Mozart release to cherish.