MOZART

Piano Concertos Nos 1-4 Ronald Brautigam (fortepiano); Die Kölner Akademie/

Michael Alexander Willens

BIS BIS-2094 (hybrid CD/SACD) 58:34 mins

Mozart’s first four piano concertos aren’t strictly speaking by him at all, but were compiled by the 11-yearold Mozart, with some help from his father, out of sonata movements by such successful composers of the day as Hermann Friedrich Raupach and Leontzi Honauer. Only in one instance – the slow movement of the first concerto of the series – do Mozart and his father seem to have composed an original piece. In the remainder they added their own tutti passages, and provided accompaniments to the original keyboard parts, though several of the pieces betray their origin in sonatas by being cast in two sections which are repeated. All the same, the music is skilfully put together, and the replacing of oboes by flutes in the last concerto of the series makes for a refreshing change of palette.