Academy of Ancient Music: Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos. 7 & 10
AAM

These are exciting times for Academy of Ancient Music (AAM). The coming year will see the organization celebrate its fiftieth anniversary season with the release of the final two volumes in a landmark cycle initiated in 1993. Upon completion, the cycle will be the first-ever recording of Mozart's complete works for keyboard and orchestra using either modern or historical instruments. Before that moment arrives, however, we're presented with the splendid eleventh volume in the series, this one featuring performances of the composer's seventh and tenth concertos by the Laurence Cummings-conducted AAM and fortepianists Robert Levin and Ya-Fei Chuang. Rounding out the volume is a recording of the Concerto Movement for Piano, Violin, and Orchestra, its fragmented form completed by Levin.

Adding to the appeal of the hour-long release is its deluxe presentation. The CD's housed within a hardback package alongside a fifty-page, full-colour booklet featuring detailed commentaries by Cliff Eisen, Richard Bratby, and Music Director Cummings and background information about AAM and associated members. No expense was spared in presenting the material so handsomely. As important as the cycle is to AAM's legacy, it bears worth noting that the company has issued more than 300 albums, many of them award-winning.

In addition to examining each concerto in detail and providing historical context and timelines, Eisen draws attention to the way the pianists, playing modern-day fortepiano copies of 1786 Stein pianos, interact, at times antiphonally, with one speaking and the other answering or repeating, and at others playing in tandem. He also convincingly argues that in these concertos Mozart's writing for two pianos seems to convey the idea of “harmonious enterprise,” even though occasional uproarious passages arise alongside naturally calmer ones in the slow movements.

One of the key selling-points for the release and series is its focus on improvisation, something AAM founder Christopher Hogwood and Levin regard as critical to Mozart's concertos and something that distinguishes AAM's recorded treatments from the, yes, thousands of others. In accenting the role of the soloist, its renditions move beyond interpretations that have grown increasingly standardized with ones that grant the performer greater agency. To that end, the pianists put their stamp on the performances with improvised cadenzas (even though ones by Mozart survive for both concertos and were adopted for this recording) and an all-around freer approach, and consequently the music is revitalized and strikingly re-imagined. (In Cummings' commentary, he describes Levin's improvisatory skills as “legendary” and that he has a way “of playing Mozart as if he were the composer himself.”)

The moment the AAM strings jumpstart the “Allegro” in the Concerto No. 7 for Two Pianos and Orchestra in F major K242, you know you're in for a joyful ride, and with the breezy entrance of the pianists that soon follows the conviction's reinforced. Words such as crisp, smooth, and spirited come to mind as the effervescent performance advances. The adagio's as lovingly executed and highlighted by the precision with which the pianists entwine, and the call-and-response with which they open the closing rondo adds to the movement's impact, as do their unison voicings and lively trills. Speaking of which, listen for the octaves-spanning acrobatics of the soloists in the opening “Allegro” of the Concerto No. 10 in E-flat major for Two Pianos and Orchestra K365, the unison runs by the pianists as arresting as their individual statements. Add in a dynamic orchestral backdrop and the result can't help but be riveting. The tenth's graceful “Andante” is as charming as the seventh's “Adagio,” while the exuberant “Rondo. Allegro” with which the concerto ends is a rollicking delight, especially when it's elevated by some of the soloists' most dazzling playing.

Levin's completion of the Concerto Movement for Piano, Violin, and Orchestra in D major K315f sings as sweetly as if Mozart himself had done the honours and for fifteen minutes at that. Thoroughly engaging, the work distances itself from the concertos by the prominent partnering role given Bojan Cicic's violin and the general sense of it being a robust piece whose focus is shared equally between fortepiano, violin, and orchestra. It's not overstating it to say that this fine eleventh volume whets the appetite for the arrival of the concluding two in the cycle, with their cover images enticingly shown in the booklet.

December 2023