Word: orchestra
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...flat piano concerto, K. 271, is Mozart's best such early work. It shows a surprising willingness to disturb the conventionally perfect balance between soloist and orchestra and is driven mostly by the pianist, who must have great endurance. Haefliger, who played with an accompanist's ear when necessary, gracefully allowed Laredo to rescue the concerto from merely unilateral appeal...
...first melody made people smile, not just because of its unwitting affinity to the orchestral part of Carmen's "Habanera," but also because the piano sounded fantastic. The Steinway trilled and sang under Haefliger's fingers, projecting pianissimo lines that were clear no matter how loudly the orchestra played. But the lowest registers were almost over-responsive: Haefliger's loudest octaves sounded like they belonged in Liszt or Busoni, not Mozart...
...heavy presto rondo. The cadenzas in both the first and third movements had dramatic as well as technical and even visual interest: Haefliger played with his eyes closed but turned toward the ceiling, and wore an expression of ecstatic concentration, his upper body resembling a bust of Homer. The orchestra that had commanded comparatively little attention for the majority of the piece came into its own toward the conclusion, matching Haefliger note for note...
This concerto has a late-classical sound unusual for music written fewer than twenty years after Bach's death. Though the structure and idiom of the middle movement were predictable, the finale was full of surprising figures and irregular phrases. The orchestra met the movement's polyphonic and rhythmic demands and maintained the character of the dance...
Throughout the piece, as throughout the concert, the musicians seemed to be having fun. At its best, the Brandenburg Ensemble, historically connected with the Marlboro Festival Orchestra, evoked the sound of that group's best recordings under Pablo Casals...