Alfred Brendel (piano)Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Sir Charles Mackerras
Philips · 4683672 · 67 minutes
Pairing the 22nd and 27th concertos gives you a real snapshot of Mozart at two very different emotional temperatures — the swagger and orchestral richness of No. 22 next to the autumnal, almost farewell quality of No. 27, written in his final year. Brendel never overplays that late-work sentimentality either, which is exactly right; he lets the phrases breathe without draping them in false nostalgia. Mackerras and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra match him with a lightness of touch that keeps everything transparent, so you can actually hear the woodwind writing doing its quiet, conversational thing underneath the piano.
Awards:
- Building a Library — May 2002 — First Choice
Clifford Curzon (piano)English Chamber Orchestra, Benjamin Britten
Decca · 4767092 · 65 minutes
There’s something almost unbearably tender about the D minor concerto’s slow movement when Curzon plays it, like he’s holding the melody at arm’s length just to admire it before letting it breathe. Britten conducting Mozart is its own kind of gift too — you can hear a fellow composer’s ear at work, shaping the orchestral textures with real specificity rather than just accompanying the soloist. Pairing No. 20 with the autumnal warmth of No. 27 makes for a program that covers Mozart’s emotional range without ever feeling like a greatest-hits exercise, and this performance has earned its Penguin Rosette many times over.
Awards:
- Penguin Guide — Rosette
Emil Gilels (piano), with Elena Gilels (piano)Wiener Philharmoniker, Karl Böhm
Deutsche Grammophon · 4636522 · 77 minutes
There’s something almost autumnal about Mozart’s last piano concerto, a kind of serene acceptance that separates it from the more overtly dramatic works around it, and Gilels understands this completely. He never pushes the B flat major toward false profundity or empty charm — he just lets those long, singing lines breathe, with Böhm and the Vienna Philharmonic offering the kind of warm, unhurried support that feels like an old friend finishing your sentences. It’s the sound of a pianist near the end of his own career meeting a composer near the end of his, and that quiet resonance is impossible to miss once you hear it.
Awards:
- Penguin Guide — Rosette
“This is the most beautiful of Mozart playing, his last piano concerto given here by Emil Gilels with total clarity. This is a classic performance, memorably accompanied by the VPO and Böhm….”
— Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010
Piotr Anderszewski (piano)Chamber Orchestra of Europe
Warner Classics · 9029572422 · 63 minutes
Pairing the 25th and 27th feels almost like bookending a whole emotional arc — one is all trumpets-and-drums grandeur, the other Mozart’s final, autumnal farewell to the form, and Anderszewski clearly relishes the contrast. What strikes you most is how unforced it all sounds: he leads from the keyboard with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, and the conversational give-and-take between piano and orchestra feels like eavesdropping on old friends rather than watching a soloist perform. That K.595 slow movement in particular has a kind of hushed simplicity that never tips into sentimentality, which is exactly the tightrope this music demands.
Awards:
- Gramophone Magazine — February 2018 — Editor’s Choice
- Gramophone Awards — 2018 — Finalist – Concerto
- The Times Records of the Year — 2018
- Limelight Magazine Recordings of the Year — 2018 — Nominated – Orchestral
“Two of Mozart’s biggest and best-loved concertos…receive performances here that are in many ways exemplary. Piotr Anderszewski’s pianism feels splendidly effortless: there’s gorgeous legato,…”
— BBC Music Magazine, March 2018,4 out of 5 stars
Academy of Ancient Music (early music ensemble), Richard Egarr (early keyboard instruments), Robert Levin (early keyboard instruments), Louise Alder (soprano)
AAM Recordings · AAM045 · 66 minutes
There’s something genuinely moving about hearing No. 27 on a fortepiano — that valedictory, autumnal quality Mozart wrote into his last concerto comes through with a translucence modern grands just can’t quite manage. Robert Levin’s improvised ornaments and cadenzas keep you honestly guessing, which is exactly how eighteenth-century audiences would have experienced this music, full of small surprises rather than fixed monuments. Pair that with No. 25’s operatic grandeur and the Academy of Ancient Music’s lean, alert playing, and you get two very different sides of late Mozart in conversation with each other.
Awards:
- Gramophone Magazine — Critics’ Choice 2024
“His pianism never crosses over into mere garrulity and he always pulls back from coming across as the cleverest guy in the room.”
— Gramophone Magazine, August 2024
Viviane Chassot (accordion), Camerata Bern
Sony · 19075908412 · 78 minutes
There’s something delightfully unsettling about hearing Mozart’s piano lines breathe through an accordion instead — that instrument’s ability to hold a note and swell into it gives the slow movements a vocal quality the piano can only fake with pedal tricks. Viviane Chassot doesn’t treat this as a novelty act either; her phrasing across the 11th, 15th, and 27th concertos leans into exactly what the accordion does that the piano can’t, rather than apologizing for what it lacks. Camerata Bern meets her halfway with playing light and alert enough that the whole thing feels less like a gimmick and more like Mozart heard through a different, oddly persuasive accent.
Awards:
- International Classical Music Awards — 2019 — Nominee – Concerto
“Blown reeds cannot rival the attack of strings struck by hammers. Yet the accordion’s sustaining power enables Chassot to bring out Mozart’s cantabile qualities…Indeed, if it has to be done,…”
— BBC Music Magazine, September 2019,4 out of 5 stars
