The fourth instalment of Kristian Bezuidenhout’s Mozart concerto series brings together two works separated by 10 years in the composer’s creative life. The Piano Concerto in B flat K238, composed in 1776 and often numbered as his sixth piano concerto, was in fact Mozart’s second original work in the form – the earliest examples he composed are now reckoned to be arrangements of keyboard sonatas by JC Bach and other composers – while K503 in C major was written a decade later in Vienna.
For these historically aware performances, Bezuidenhout plays a modern copy of an 1808 fortepiano that was made in Vienna by Anton Walter, whose instruments Mozart admired. It’s certainly an appropriate instrument for the grand gestures of K503, though K238 may have been intended for a more modest “square piano”. Both works are presented with Bezuidenhout’s usual cool precision, and the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra make equally stylish partners.
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