Mozart: Piano Concertos 6, 8 & 18 - CD

Olga Pashchenko and Il Gardellino present a third recording of Mozart's piano concertos. Following two volumes (Alpha 726 and 942) that were very well received by the press and the public: 'The most exhilarating authentic Mozart I have ever heard,' wrote The Spectator. In January 1776, Mozart composed his Piano Concerto No. 6, followed by the Eighth in April. Then aged 20, he did not want to shock the aristocracy of Salzburg and wrote simple music, but music that transports us 'to the calm gentleness of a paradise garden, in the manner of the Elysian Fields evoked by Gluck and Rameau', as Olivier Messiaen said. Completed on 30 September, 1784, Concerto K 465 remains shrouded in mystery as to when it was first performed. It is thought that Mozart premiered it in February 1785 in Vienna in front of his father Leopold, who wrote to his daughter Maria Anna that Wolfgang had triumphed and that the emperor took off his hat and exclaimed 'bravo Mozart!' As with all her recordings, Olga Pashchenko has chosen appropriate instruments, a copy of an Anton Walter fortepiano (ca. 1792) by Paul McNulty and a copy of a Spath & Schmahl tangent piano (Regensburg, 1794) by Chris Maene.