Mozart: Piano Concertos 20 & 23 features il Gardellino with Olga Pashchenko, Fortepiano & Leader. This album from Alpha Classics is Exclusively Available in Stereo DSD 512, DSD 256, DSD 128, DSD 64 and DXD at NativeDSD.

D minor: the key of “melancholy femininity, which incubates spleen and mists”, said Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart (1739-1791) in his Ideen zu einer Ästhetik der Tonkunst (publ. 1806). The D minor carapace of KV 466 also heralds the beginning of the overture of Don Giovanni and the future fate of the opera’s title role.

Mozart began to compose the concerto at the end of January 1785, just after the so-called ‘Dissonance’ Quartet KV 465 ; the concerto, the twentieth of its kind but the first in this key, was completed on 10 February, the day before its premiere at the Mehlgrube Casino. Given the time that was then needed to copy out the necessary parts, Mozart’s orchestral players were required to sight-read certain sections of the work during its first performance.

The Allegro begins dramatically with a muted roar of agitated syncopations from the violins and violas against a backdrop of storm-laden rumbling from the bass instruments. A true forte, marked by a cascade of broken chords, appears only in bar sixteen. A brief transition with military overtones follows, after which the woodwinds interrupt the storm for a moment to introduce the long-awaited F major.

The intervals of the flute theme – an ascending octave leap followed by a descending sixth – inspire the notes of the soloist’s entry with a new musical idea, after which she swiftly and unexpectedly begins to develop every theme she touches.

Beethoven was swift to adopt the same technique; he was also to set down his own recollection of the cadenza that Mozart improvised on the spot and never transcribed. The piano launches the slow movement, using a rondo form in and around B flat major. The peaceful refrain is interrupted by two contrasting sections: the first is vocal in character and close to the general mood of the Romanze, whilst the second adopts the character of the Sturm und Drang aesthetic in a heart-rending G minor.

Olga Pashchenko, Fortepiano & Leader
il Gardellino