It's a bit of a surprise to see the venerable RCA Red Seal imprint (it's now a part of Sony Classical) on this recording by pianist See Siang Wong and the able, but hardly fabled, Südwestdeutsche Philharmonie Konstanz under Philipp von Steinaecker. However, it's Mozart of a type not so often heard these days, and Wong is clearly an emerging talent, so it would seem the label knew what it was doing. This is Mozart as the 19th century knew him, with a few revisions. The minor-key, proto-Beethovenian Mozart was much beloved by ...
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It's a bit of a surprise to see the venerable RCA Red Seal imprint (it's now a part of Sony Classical) on this recording by pianist See Siang Wong and the able, but hardly fabled, Südwestdeutsche Philharmonie Konstanz under Philipp von Steinaecker. However, it's Mozart of a type not so often heard these days, and Wong is clearly an emerging talent, so it would seem the label knew what it was doing. This is Mozart as the 19th century knew him, with a few revisions. The minor-key, proto-Beethovenian Mozart was much beloved by the Romantics, who might easily have ended a concerto program with a solo work as Wong does here with the radically enervated Adagio in B minor, K. 540. In the concertos, Wong uses big, extensive cadenzas by Hummel (in the Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K. 466) and Philipp Karl Hoffmann (in the Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K. 491). The slow movements have credits not only for the cadenzas but for "elaborations," for Wong has ornamented them quite a bit. The jury is out on...
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