Mozart: Piano Concerto Nos.16 & 17 / Bartók: Piano Concerto No.2

The highly respected Hungarian pianist Geza Anda (1921-1976) has appeared on BBC Legends once before in a mixed recital including Bartok (BBCL41352) recorded at the 1955 Edinburgh Festival. This programme of broadcasts from the 1970's showcases him in two Mozart concertos and the technically challenging Bartok Piano Concerto No.2. All these works have been recorded in the studio during the early 1960's but here we have three rare broadcasts made a year before his premature death at the age of 55 (the Bartok concert was three years earlier) Anda's recording of the Mozart Concerto K467 was the soundtrack to the award winning film 'Elvira Madigan' and as a result, went onto be an international best seller establishing him as a major interpreter of Mozart. The Bartok Concerto No.2 features Pierre Boulez conducting, one of the great composers and conductors of contemporary music of our time. The stereo CD is 81 minutes long, fantastic value - three piano concertos on one CD. Gramophone Magazine December 2008 “From the first bar of K451… you know you are in for something special. This is Mozart-playing of a refined order, robust, sparkling and fully in tune with the entertainment character of the work. This live 1973 performance of [Bartók's] No 2 is played at a cracking pace, rich in detail and, in the treacherously difficult outer movements, simply thrilling.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide 2010 “Géza Anda's all-too-brief 30-year career (he died in 1976 at the age of 54) left us with a string of fine recordings including one of the first complete cycles of Mozart's concertos (for DG) and benchmark versions of all three of Bartók's. It is with these two vastly dissimilar composers featured here that Anda is indelibly linked. From the first bar of K451, the least-played of all Mozart's mature keyboard concertos, you know you are in for something special. Anda, directing from the keyboard, launches the ECO into a true allegro assai, exuberantly matched by the piano's entry. This is Mozart-playing of a refined order, robust, sparkling and fully in tune with the entertainment character of the work. The sublime K453 is a live performance from over six years later, no less successful in its precision, stylishness and general high spirits, though the piano tone is slightly glassy compared to the more rounded studio sound of K451. In Pierre Boulez, Anda, who had been playing the Bartók concertos since the 1950s, had a sympathetic and experienced collaborator. This live 1973 performance of No 2 is played at a cracking pace, rich in detail and, in the treacherously difficult outer movements, simply thrilling. Yet few pianists (not even Pollini) have found on disc quite the same mesmerising, unsettling atmosphere as Anda does here in the central Adagio. This is a valuable and well-filled disc.”