Brendel's conception of Mozart's two minor-key concertos has altered in countless nuances and emphases but little in fundamentals since his Philips recordings with Marriner made back in 1973. The sensibility, pianistic refinement and sheer questing intelligence of his playing remain as compelling as ever. Neither performance will entirely please those who favour a barnstorming, Sturm und Drang approach. More than in 1973, Brendel is at times more concerned to draw out the music's elegiac resignation than to highlight its more obvious passion and turbulence; and the coda of K491 distils a rueful grace unlike any other performance I have heard. But if the first movements may be insufficiently combustible for some tastes, Brendel's readings combine a rare feeling for classical balance and proportion with wonderfully inventive detail. More than most pianists he constantly illuminates both the smaller and larger shapes of the music with his range of colour and dynamics. In both opening movements, for instance, he brings a speaking eloquence to the piano's initial solo theme and then finds a subtly altered tone of voice, in response to the gradually darkening musical landscape, for each of its reappearances in the development. Another Brendel hallmark is his variety of tone and articulation in rapid passagework, which is always purposefully directed in accordance with its place in the overall scheme. As before, he provides apt and - crucially - spontaneous-sounding embellishments and 'in-filling' at fermatas, this time allowing himself greater freedom in decorating the spare lines of the slow movements; and, again, he uses his own cadenzas in both concertos, more adventurous in their thematic development than any of Mozart's own surviving examples but otherwise models of style and concision.
Brendel has never been one to dawdle indulgently in Mozart's andantes and larghettos; and both the Romanze slow movements unfold at natural, flowing tempos, that in K466 a notch more swiftly than in 1973; and I like the hints of playfulness Brendel brings out here and in, say, the two major-key variations in the finale of K491. Where this new version definitely scores is in the orchestral accompaniments. Marriner, so often an ideal partner in Brendel's complete Mozart cycle, can be a shade too smooth and well-groomed in these particular works; and you only have to compare the two recordings in the opening tutti of K491 to hear the extra character Mackerras brings to the music - the impact of raw, louring brass (tamed by Marriner) at strategic moments, for instance, or his attentive shaping of inner strands to enhance the tension. The recording has an attractive spaciousness and ambient warmth, though in the wind-saturated K491 the keyboard occasionally obscures important thematic ideas on oboes, clarinets and bassoons. In sum, though, a disc to add to the short list - which includes, inter alia, Kempff in K491 and Perahia, Schiff, Curzon and Shelley in both concertos - of durable recordings of these inexhaustible works.'