Several years ago, Arabella Steinbacher made a satisfying recording of the last three Mozart violin concertos with the Lucerne Festival Strings under conductor Daniel Dodds. Those are the more commonly performed Mozart concertos; the first two show the teenage Mozart's concerto language under development and are less familiar items. However, Steinbacher returned to Mozart during the pandemic and recorded the first and second concertos, together with three freestanding concerto movements apparently written by Mozart at the ...
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Several years ago, Arabella Steinbacher made a satisfying recording of the last three Mozart violin concertos with the Lucerne Festival Strings under conductor Daniel Dodds. Those are the more commonly performed Mozart concertos; the first two show the teenage Mozart's concerto language under development and are less familiar items. However, Steinbacher returned to Mozart during the pandemic and recorded the first and second concertos, together with three freestanding concerto movements apparently written by Mozart at the behest of performers, to replace movements in the existing concertos. She once again shows herself a talented Mozart player. Her Mozart is in the classic mold, with no mannerisms of the historical performance movement evident, but she also avoids Romantic excesses, with smooth, elegant renditions of the big tunes in the vein of Anne-Sophie Mutter's recordings of Mozart's concertos. She catches the experimental quality of the first two concertos, the excitement Mozart felt as he remade...
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