This is a delightful disc. In various live recordings we are getting used to issues built on concert programmes instead of by genre. Here Christian Zacharias, in a studio recording, successfully experiments with a nicely balanced Mozart group of symphony, aria and concerto. He himself takes multiple roles, conducting a fresh and lively account of the Prague Symphony, and acting as piano soloist not only in the Concerto, directing the weighty K503 from the keyboard, but also providing a crisply pointed obbligato in the most taxing of Mozart’s concert arias, Ch’io mi scordi di te.
The sense of freedom and spontaneous enjoyment is enhanced by the clarity of the recording, made in the Metropole, Lausanne. Though tuttis are big and weighty, Zacharias finds rare transparency in lighter passages, and a vivid sense of presence throughout. One of Zacharias’s great merits as a Mozart pianist is the crispness of his articulation; he defines each note with jewelled clarity, even in the fastest, trickiest passagework, as in the dashing triplets in the finale of K503.
The Symphony too is given a refreshing performance, with due weight in the first movement and light, crisp articulation in the finale. Some may feel that Zacharias underplays the gravity of the central Andante, but nowadays few will object to a flowing tempo such as one expects in a period performance.
In many ways, most striking of all is the concert aria, which comes between symphony and concerto. Bernarda Fink, officially a mezzo, is not just untroubled by the soprano tessitura but gives a most characterful interpretation, pointing words and phrases with delightful individuality. Using her lovely creamy tone-colours, Fink here offers one of the most impressive of all versions of this notorious test-piece since Schwarzkopf, rounding off her virtuoso display of coloratura with a perfect trill in an exuberant account of the coda. I have long admired this singer, but never more so on disc than here. Her contribution crowns a consistently enjoyable programme.'