Search - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Johann Sebastian Bach, Alceo Galliera :: Clara Haskil plays Mozart & Bach

Legendary recording of legendary performances

Abel | Hong Kong | 10/29/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Clara Haskil as a keyboard Mozartian is unsurpassed. While most her recordings of Mozart are 'historical' without the aid of the best of sonic technology, those performances are nonetheless high in value and well-loved.

Here we have another historical recording - of Mozart's last piano concerto with Otto Klemperer. The No. 27 has always been a work loathed by pianists. There are relatively fewer recordings of it than the earlier immediately preceding ones. Haskil's performance sets a benchmark for performers in the sheer interpretive brilliance and sleek keyboard outpouring.

Geza Anda, one of the best Mozart interpretors on keyboard (who completed an entire set of piano concerti recording of Mozart for DGG), first collaborated with Haskil at the early stage of his musical career. It is even fair to say that in more ways than one Anda was the 'successor' of Haskil in the performance of Mozart's works.

That said, the two of them in this album paired up in a Bach keyboard concerto (played by two pianos). Here, we are given a rare glimpse of Clara Haskil as an interpretor of J. S. Bach, and you'd not be surprised that she and Geza Anda came up with an equally exalted standard in this composer's work!

This is a must album for serious pianoforte lovers."