Re: GG: Mozart

["Bradley Lehman" <bpl@umich.edu>]

>Michael (or anyone), for those of us who haven't yet seen the light wrt
>Mozart :), I wonder if you could recommend any particular recordings,
>pieces, performers?  Keeping in mind we are a bunch of Gould fans :).
>(For me, operas and large symphonies are a total turn-off.)


Yikes, where to begin?  The string quintets and the clarinet quintet; the
piano quartet in G minor; any of the piano concertos after #14 or so (esp
#22 and #23).  And "A musical joke," which is hilarious.

The two-piano concerto played by Friedrich Gulda and Chick Corea and
conducted by Harnoncourt (!).  Gulda/Harnoncourt also did a very good disc
of #23 and #26, with Gulda "continuo-izing" quite a bit as GG did in #24.

Symphony #38, "Prague," delightful.  And it's been proposed (I forget where)
that the second movement might be the key to Elgar's "Enigma" Variations.

For something way out there, try the two-piano arrangements that Grieg did
of some of Mozart's piano sonatas: the first pianist plays the original
Mozart, the second pianist plays Grieg's accompaniments.  Radically changes
the character of the sonatas.  Leonskaja and Richter recorded those.

Bradley Lehman, bpl@umich.edu