The most exhilarating ‘authentic’ Mozart I’ve ever heard

Yet another double bill of Mozart’s Piano Concertos 20 and 23! There’s an online database of 185 recordings of the first of these, the brooding K466 in D minor, and the classically perfect K488 in A major isn’t far behind. Can there really be anything new to say about either of them?

The answer is yes, and in virtually every bar. Olga Pashchenko, a Russian-born pianist based in the Netherlands, here directs the top-flight period ensemble Il Gardellino in her second album of Mozart concertos. She’s playing a fortepiano, but don’t let that put you off: it’s a sweet-toned instrument whose soft action helps Pashchenko deliver cheeky ornaments at lightning speed.

And cheeky is definitely the word. In her own cadenza for the first movement of K466 she moves quickly to the bar Mozart wrote to lead back into the orchestra, then pulls away to continue her note-spinning; in the cadenza for the finale, the curtains part and we catch a glimpse of Don Giovanni. 

The lightness of Pashchenko’s touch allows her to get away with experiments that would sound forced on a Steinway. The slow movement of K466 becomes a deliciously shameless coloratura aria. The soloist’s filling-in during the tuttis adds to the fun. There are splashes of old-fashioned rubato and desynchronised chords rarely heard since the 1930s, and Il Gardellino is definitely in on the game. The finale of K488, which to my heretical ears can sound mechanical, is here a bustling marvel; you’ll hear unscripted twists to even the most hectic arpeggios. This is the most exhilarating ‘authentic’ Mozart I’ve ever heard. Period.