Mendelssohn: Double Concerto & Piano Concerto

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Both soloists have a fine line in fireworks and for the most part rhythms are secure...in general these are spirited performances, excellently recorded. — BBC Music Magazine, November 2011, 4 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 1st Aug 2011
Catalogue No: HMC902082
Label: Harmonia Mundi
Length: 71 minutes

Mendelssohn: Piano Concerto in A minor (for piano and strings), 1822

Work length34:16

$5.35

$6.50

$8.00

Kristian Bezuidenhout, Freiburger Barockorchester, Gottfried von der Goltz

Concerto for Piano and Strings in A Minor, MWV 02 (1822): I. Allegro

Track length14:53

$2.15

$2.60

$3.20

Concerto for Piano and Strings in A Minor, MWV 02 (1822): II. Adagio

Track length9:13

$1.60

$1.95

$2.40

III. Finale (Allegro ma non troppo)

Track length10:10

$1.60

$1.95

$2.40

Mendelssohn: Double Concerto for Violin and Piano in D Minor, MWV O 4

Work length37:14

Album only

Kristian Bezuidenhout, Gottfried von der Goltz

Double Concerto for Piano, Violin and Orchestra in D Minor, MWV 04 (1823): I. Allegro

Track length18:20

Album only

Double Concerto for Piano, Violin and Orchestra in D Minor, MWV 04 (1823): II. Adagio: Molto sostenuto

Track length9:42

$1.60

$1.95

$2.40

Double Concerto for Piano, Violin and Orchestra in D Minor, MWV 04 (1823): III. Allegro molto

Track length9:12

$1.60

$1.95

$2.40

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About

Three years before the Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture, Felix Mendelssohn wrote this amazing Concerto for (forte)piano and violin, built on the Classical model but brimming with new, even iconoclastic ideas. And yet, when it had its first performance in May 1823, the composer was aged just 14! By then he had already written around 100 works, including a Piano Concerto premiered a year earlier. It was not until the late 20th century that they appeared in a critical edition, on which this recording is based.

Kristian Bezuidenhout first gained international recognition at the age of 21, after winning the prestigious first prize as well as the audience prize in the Bruges Fortepiano Competition. He has fully explored early keyboards, studying harpsichord with Arthur Haas, fortepiano with Malcolm Bilson and continuo playing and performance practice with Paul O’Dette. Bezuidenhout is a frequent guest artist with the Freiburger Barockorchester, the Orchestre des Champs-Élysées, The Orchestra of the 18th Century, Les Arts Florissants, Concerto Köln and The Chamber Orchestra of Europe, in many instances assuming the role of guest director.

Bezuidenhout now divides his time between concerto, recital and chamber-music engagements, appearing in the early-music festivals of Barcelona, Boston, Bruges, Innsbruck, St. Petersburg, Venice and Utrecht, as well as the Saintes Festival, La Roque d’Anthéron, the Chopin Festival Warsaw, the Tanglewood Festival and Mostly Mozart Lincoln Center, and at many of the world’s most important concert halls including those of Amsterdam, Berlin, Cologne, London, Vienna, Tokyo, Paris, Boston and New York.

He is a guest professor at the Schola Cantorum (Basel) and the Eastman School of Music (Rochester, Ney York); in 2007 he was awarded the Erwin Bodky Prize and the Deutschlandfunk Förderpreis. Kristian Bezuidenhout is Artistic Advisor for the Constellation Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Reviews

November 2011

Both soloists have a fine line in fireworks and for the most part rhythms are secure...in general these are spirited performances, excellently recorded.

November 2011

There is verve and spirit in these performances, but only where the composer demands it...In both concertos the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra brings out all that is new and innovative in these immature works. This is a 'must' if you love Mendelssohn and want to hear his early works given a polished, characterful performance

December 2011

Gottfried von der Goltz's solos are full of the swells we're accustomed to hearing in earlier music, rounded off with a hint of easy portamento, but his short-breathed phrasing and vigorous spiccato don't feel like concerto playing...Questions of style don't arise with Kristian Bezuidenhout, such is the weight of sonority he draws from this fortepiano (a modern copy of a Graf), his fine touch and taste...Do try to hear this.

14th August 2011

the double concerto of 1823 marks an advance on the earlier piano concerto (1822), the brilliant piano writing in both shows the fruitful influence of Weber and Hummel, and the playing of the soloists and the period-instrument Freiburg band is nice and lively.

Mendelssohn: Double Concerto & Piano Concerto

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