Mozart Piano Concertos Vol 1: K415 & K238

Anne Marie McDermott launches her first volume of what promises to be a complete Mozart concerto cycle with a surprising choice. Yet even in the early and less ambitious concertos, you are already aware of how Mozart turned convention topsy-turvy with endless resource, wit and skill.

Such qualities are memorably caught by McDermott. How beautifully she matches and responds to K415’s robust and ceremonial opening tutti with playing as nuanced as it is direct. Bright, bold and assured, she is also sensitive to every passing shadow and ambiguity, most notably in the finale’s sudden branching out into minor key reflection. K238 may be, as the sleeve notes tell us, ‘a journeyman’s work’, but the added bonus of specially composed cadenzas by Chris Rogerson and an ideally balanced partnership with conductor and orchestra whet our appetite for the later masterpieces.

BRYCE MORRISON Read the full review on Agora Classica