Mozart: Piano Quartets (2018)

This release features Daniel Barenboim, a superb Mozart pianist to be sure, joined by three of his protégés from his West-Eastern Divan Orchestra. It has no right to work as well as it does: one-off chamber projects tend to be inferior to performances by well-established chamber groups, and the dominant figure in such groupings has to either rein in the energy or dominate. But this one cooks. Partly it's the presence of a family grouping: violinist Michael Barenboim is the pianist's son. And Daniel has worked closely with ... Read More

This release features Daniel Barenboim, a superb Mozart pianist to be sure, joined by three of his protégés from his West-Eastern Divan Orchestra. It has no right to work as well as it does: one-off chamber projects tend to be inferior to performances by well-established chamber groups, and the dominant figure in such groupings has to either rein in the energy or dominate. But this one cooks. Partly it's the presence of a family grouping: violinist Michael Barenboim is the pianist's son. And Daniel has worked closely with all these musicians for some years. But it's more than that: the balance involved in the Mozart piano quartets is unlike that involved in almost any other work by Mozart. They lie halfway between concerto and chamber music, and the big first movements are accordingly quite intricately constructed. Although they're not especially late Mozart works, they give a hint of where his music might have gone had he lived into the age of Hummel and Beethoven. Sample either of the nearly... Read Less