Mozart: Music for Two Pianos (2005)

This recording, made in 1975, is part of a series featuring the recordings of the venerable pianist Earl Wild, who was well into his tenth decade and still going strong. On this recording, nearly 60, he is paired with the young pianist Zaidee Parkinson -- her age is strenuously obscured, but she seems to have been in her twenties -- in an attractive trio of Mozart duo-piano works. There is the Concerto for two pianos in E flat major, K. 365, the Sonata in D major for two pianos, K. 448, and a sonata for one piano, four ... Read More

This recording, made in 1975, is part of a series featuring the recordings of the venerable pianist Earl Wild, who was well into his tenth decade and still going strong. On this recording, nearly 60, he is paired with the young pianist Zaidee Parkinson -- her age is strenuously obscured, but she seems to have been in her twenties -- in an attractive trio of Mozart duo-piano works. There is the Concerto for two pianos in E flat major, K. 365, the Sonata in D major for two pianos, K. 448, and a sonata for one piano, four hands (K. 497). The pianists differed in more than age; Parkinson often played Mozart's music, but Wild, whose core repertoire ran from Beethoven forward to Liszt and the virtuoso Russians, was anything but a Mozart specialist. And Richard Dufallo, who conducts Britain's National Philharmonic Orchestra in the concerto, was known mostly for his association with modern music and treats the orchestra as if it were a brittle Stravinsky ensemble rather than graceful entertainment for the... Read Less