Mozart: Piano Concertos K238, K246 and K271 – review

Hewitt/O di Camera di Mantova
4 out of 5 4
    • The Guardian,
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  1. Buy the CD
  2. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
  3. Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos. 6, 8 & 9
  4. None
  5. Hyperion
  1. 2011

Angela Hewitt sets out on her Hyperion journey through all 27 of Mozart's solo piano concertos with the three that mark the boundary between early works and the sequence of concertos of the composer's maturity. The E flat Concerto K271, composed in 1777, is generally recognised as the first great Mozart piano concerto, while the much less substantial K238 in B flat and K 246 in C were composed the previous year. Hewitt directs the performances from the keyboard; with the piano well forward of the orchestra in the sound picture, her playing is typically crisp, and occasionally perhaps a bit too brisk, though its attention to detail is immaculate. She contributes her own detailed sleeve notes, full of pertinent historical footnotes, pointing out, for example, that a concerto such as K238 was given its first performances by Mozart and his sister on a harpsichord rather than a fortepiano. She uses her own cadenzas for that work, but opts for the ones left by Mozart for K246 and K271.

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