Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Concerto movement in G from Nannerl’s Music Book (reconstr. R. Levin)
Piano Concerto No. 5 in D, K175 (1773)
Piano Concerto in D, K107, No. 1 (c.1771 or 72)
Piano Concerto in G, K107, No. 2 (c.1771 or 72)
Piano Concerto in E flat, K107, No. 3 (c.1771 or 72)
Church Sonata No. 17 in C, K336 (1780)
Robert Levin (harpsichord, organ)
Academy of Ancient Music/Laurence Cummings, Bojan Čičić (violin)
rec. 2021, St Jude on the Hill, Hampstead, London; 2022 Christ’s Chapel of Alleyn’s College of God’s Gift, Dulwich, London
Cadenzas improvised by Robert Levin
Piano Concertos – Volume 10
Academy of Ancient Music AAM042 [62]
I begin with the best: Mozart’s Piano Concerto 5, the outstanding work and performance on this CD – but not as a piano concerto; think a Handel organ concerto at a very merry party. In the book notes, handsomely presented in 64 pages with colour photos, Mozart guru Cliff Eisen argues this concerto could have been played on the organ; Robert Levin, the organist, has identified a likely one in Salzburg. Back in England for this recording, we get George England’s organ completed for Christ’s Chapel in Dulwich in 1760. The version of K175 is the original of 1773 with period instruments and suitably sized ensemble of 22. Does it work? Absolutely!
The orchestral introduction to the opening Allegro movement is from Laurence Cummings, supremely confident. The alternation is familiar as in later Mozart concertos: a loud military man, with trumpets and drums; a soft violins’ lady adding grace to the proceedings. Her quieter yet still resolute manner is developed in the second theme (tr. 2, 0:28). Come the organ repeat, Robert Levin seems happier with the beefier material, his lady’s dancing a mite ungainly, but, when the orchestra dives in to obliterate it, the organ supplements and adds resilience to the dance in running semiquavers and with such passagework Levin enlivens much of the movement. There are two recapitulations (3:43, 4:33) which prove false in that further development exploration ensues. The coda adds steel of summation as does the resplendence of Levin’s cadenza, as throughout this CD does his own improvisation. In the final dance the lady’s opening quavers become a triumphant scamper.
This is Levin’s second recording with the AAM. I compare it with the first, Volume 7 of this set, recorded in 1997 with Christopher Hogwood conducting (Decca 4582852, download only) which is of the 1782 version of K175 in which Mozart substituted a Rondo finale, the other movements unchanged. In 1997 Levin plays a fortepiano, a modern copy of Anton Walter, c.1795. Levin/Hogwood, timing the movement at 7:45 to Levin/Cummings’ 8:21, sweep forward in a more businesslike manner, but the lady’s early quavers are more shining and elegant. The fortepiano is very clear, but of course the organ more sonorous. However, the interplay between fortepiano and woodwind is more intimate. The tuttis are cheerier, less battle-arrayed. Levin’s 1997 cadenza is 53 seconds against 38 in 2022. To me, it feels more inventive and generous in display of his instrument’s range.
The slow movement is marked Andante ma un poco adagio, so there’s an underlying smooth flow but also enough space to point its reflective essence. The solo organ takes the lead in this latter characteristic, for which it’s well suited. The orchestral introduction is played by Cummings with warmth and intensity. There are the same alternations of loud and soft passages as in the first movement, but I feel the sforzandos here a touch overdone, more rhetorical than expressive of deep feeling. This problem largely disappears when the organ takes the main responsibility with the main theme, becoming a sustained arioso in which later the soloist and orchestra seamlessly exchange places. The diaphanous quality of much of Levin’s contribution is appealing, as is his taking flight at the end of the cadenza.
Levin/Hogwood, timing the movement at 8:31 to Levin/Cummings’ 7:46 are more idyllic. The 1997 sforzandos are a clear contrast without the dramatic jolts of 2022. The more diminutive tone of the fortepiano makes for more exquisite effect. Levin’s 1997 cadenza, 1:16 against 1:05 in 2022, begins with introverted longing for the key melodies recalled and latterly plunges more to the depths.
The Allegro finale offers an orchestral introduction of the highest spirits, again loud tutti pomp, but on strings alone a soft second theme (tr. 4, 0:13) of humour and relaxation, with a defter second part. A false recap (2:30) is soon modified harmonically and second time (3:20) comes with a fresh fugato tailpiece as transition to the cadenza.
For comparison, there is another recording of this original finale, made in 2013 by Arthur Schoonderwoerd as harpsichord/director of Cristofori (Accent 24289). He insists this work is explicitly scored for harpsichord. The ambience is brighter, with sheeny, loud strings, more niftiness and a lilt to the second theme – but Levin’s fortepiano is more characterful against the accompaniment than Schoonderwoerd’s more elegant harpsichord. Schoonderwoerd, timing his cadenza at 29 seconds to Levin’s 44, seems relatively perfunctory, without Levin’s focus on the two themes.
Now the rest, which fascinatingly trace how Mozart reached the best. Stage 1 is the Concerto movement, keyboard only, Mozart’s age around 8. This CD misses an opportunity as we don’t get that. For the real McCoy, go to Florian Birsak, harpsichord, recorded in 2009 (Decca 4831219, download only), if you’re a masochist. A mix of florid semiquavers and stolid quavers, right-hand animated, impressively virtuosic, left-hand pretty plodding. Birsak plays purposefully but you sense a piece unsure where it’s going. My guess is the child Mozart somehow picked up from Handel this piece’s principal 7-note motif, including 4 quavers on the same note, and composed the left-hand, father Leopold at least finessing the right-hand: the manuscript is in his hand. On this CD we get Levin doing for its first recording with orchestra just what he later shows Mozart doing in K107. What a recovery job! His orchestral introduction brings bounce to Mozart’s principal motif, now sounding exactly fitting the title words of the Trio ‘The flocks shall leave the mountains’ in Handel’s Acis and Galatea of 1718, lilting phrases and harpsichord repeat with strings in close support and echoing comments tempering the stream of soloist’s semiquavers. It has become a foot-tapping piece and kind of makes sense. But this would be Mozart age 15 or 16. Levin’s harpsichord throughout this CD is a modern copy of Johann-Heinrich Silbermann, c. 1770.
Stage 2, Mozart 11, Leopold gave him a variety of movements by composers mostly unfamiliar to arrange into what today are ‘his’ Piano Concertos 1-4. These from Levin are Volume 8 of his set, recorded with Christopher Hogwood in 1998 (Decca 4661312, download only). Stage 3, Mozart 15 or 16, arranges 3 of Johann Christian Bach ‘s piano sonatas op. 5, numbers 2 to 4, his concertos K107 with Mozart’s orchestral addition for strings, on this CD an octet.
In K107/1, I select the first movement for comment. With classy sheeny loud tutti from the AAM directed by their leader Bojan Čičić you won’t believe they’re just an octet and the double appoggiatura after the opening three crunching chords has a rapacious touch. The second theme (tr. 5, 0:31) is soft and suave, the development more reflective but soon threatened by a new urgency with violins’ semiquavers adding a shiver to the soloist’s 4-note descending motif, this latter strengthened by the doubling from the first and then also second violins on its repeats. Thus, Mozart shows a clear sense of the dramatic capability of orchestration. Levin’s cadenza is a brief but exultant feast of semiquaver descents, stomping low chords and semiquaver rises. The suddenly highly syncopated orchestral coda is scintillantly emphatic.
I compare this with Luca Guglielmi, harpsichord/director of Concerto Madrigalesco, his ensemble just 4 players, recorded live in 2010 (Accent ACC24256). Here’s great clarity of texture but less intensity of progression. His beginning of the development is rather amorphous and his climax of the movement isn’t achieved as dramatically. Guglielmi’s cadenza is suitably spectacular, but taking 54 seconds against Levin’s 33 outlasts its welcome. With Levin ingredients from the movement are more discernible.
In K107/2, I select its second and final movement, a theme and variations marked Allegretto. Čičić achieves a flowing tempo for a theme which blends devotion and joy. Its second strain grows in contentment with a touch of longing in octave leaps. The harpsichord right-hand doubles the first violin melody, the left mainly doubling the string-bass. Levin makes this delicate support, so the harpsichord’s greater prominence with the theme in Variation 1 (tr. 9, 1:01) is a pleasing contrast. A change Wolfie can’t resist is mischievous dotted rhythms mid-course (1:09). Čičić’s violins appropriately bloom at the end of the first strain, setting up Levin’s uninhibited enjoyment of trills in the second. In Variation 2 (1:57) first and second violins alternate with trills while the harpsichord has continuous semiquavers. In Variation 3 (2:54) the harpsichord has triplets in semiquavers, set against violins’ semiquaver rests plus 3-semiquaver groups. I sense a smidgin of inhibition given the discipline needed to coordinate all these elements, but the string-bass sails serenely through. Variation 4 (3:49) is braggadocio: 3-quaver groups now of 2-demisemiquavers and a semiquaver, delivered by harpsichord and cheekily echoed by first violin. The opening pure theme returns as a coda (4:44), as in JCB’s original and Čičić’s account, but the urtext of the New Mozart Edition doesn’t indicate this and Ton Koopman’s 1989 recording with the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra (download only, Philips, 4757333) makes a convincing case for the NME version. Koopman’s theme is more elegant and contented than Čičić’s, but Čičić brings more warmth, humour in dotted rhythms, and soulfulness.
In K107/3, I select the second and final movement a gem of an Allegretto with just one theme with ongoing modifications. First from orchestra, it’s essentially gentle and homely, a questioning phrase ending in rakish appoggiaturas, balanced by a calming response. The harpsichord repeats with added ornamentation. Expectation is constantly subverted, Mozart using orchestra versus soloist to emphasise. One example, orchestral chords suggest progress (tr. 11, 0:24) but are just a frame for harpsichord’s rippling semiquavers. The development is harpsichord creamy semiquavers against orchestra’s contented crotchets. The soloist returns to the theme in a developmental, harmonically exploratory manner; this just a transition to the orchestra’s recap: warm, grateful, affectionate. In the harpsichord’s repeat Levin is more gleeful and extravagant in ornamentation. Koopman, timing at 4:26 to Čičić’s 2:39, gives us Adagio, an orgy of relaxation and excess.
I end as I began, with Mozart composing for organ, this one in a Solemn Mass setting. This is happy music: the spring of tripping dotted rhythms on violins, pirouetting quaver descents, semiquavers heading a longer somersault after which the organ repeats this first theme and accompaniment. This becomes the principal focus of its extended consideration, nurtured with ornamentation. The second theme is all organ, beginning on a clarion call of top C (tr. 12, 1:04). Levin also introduces a third theme of highly repetitive, dance-like staccato jollity (1:49), the violins with a soft, politer, echoing leading to a recapitulation which unexpectedly briefly develops the first theme in C minor (2:21). But you feel you are in a concerto when the strings get excited in a dramatic lead-in to the cadenza which finds Levin toying with the first theme and supplying his dazzle that pervades this CD.
I compare it with Peter Hurford with the Amsterdam Mozart Players recorded in 1987 (Decca 4212972, now licensed to Presto). It is sweeter, more sedate than Levin and co, more serenade-like. The second theme has lost its top C opening, the third has become sanitized into being cosy and benign. Levin and co bring impetus throughout.
Michael Greenhalgh
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