Jos van Immerseel, who has featured sporadically in solo, chamber and Lieder recordings, here makes his recorded concerto debut in emphatic fashion, giving us in one fell swoop all of Mozart's original solo keyboard concertos. Like Malcolm Bilson on Archiv, in the only other complete cycle of the concertos using a fortepiano, he opts for a replica of an instrument by Anton Walter, whose pianos Mozart especially prized in the 1780s for their rounded, singing tone; unlike Bilson, though, he chooses to direct from the keyboard, as the composer himself would have done. His Dutch-based Anima Eterna Orchestra, appearing on disc for the first time, is a lively and accomplished group of mainly young musicians, with a nucleus of between ten and 21 string players according to the scale of the work.
One immediate difference between this new set and the Bilson/Gardiner cycle is in the recorded sound. In both the fortepiano, placed between first and second violins (which are properly divided left and right) is integrated into the orchestra, giving a very different balance from most modern-instrument versions where the soloist has star billing. (E. T. A. Hoffmann called Mozart's concertos ''symphonies with piano obbligato''—and in these recordings you can understand why.) But whereas the sound given to Bilson has plenty of space around it, setting the listener, say, a dozen rows back in the stalls, that on the new discs presents the music virtually as a conductor would hear it. At first I found it disconcertingly close, even aggressive, especially in the earlier concertos (to K449) which were recorded in a smaller church than those from K450 onwards. As the ear adjusted I came to appreciate the vividness and immediacy of the fortepiano (a fine, characterful instrument with a beautiful silvery treble, built specially for this project by Christopher Clarke), though I was still sometimes disturbed by the proximity of the orchestra: as recorded they rarely achieve a true piano, and at times keyboard figuration is rendered all but inaudible by the wind.
As to the interpretations, van Immerseel's manner, especially in the quick movements, tends to be more robust, his phrasing plainer and more direct, with a generally narrower spectrum of colour and dynamics. I like his eager, forthright approach to the outer movements of the first concerto of all, the irrepressibly self-confident K175 in D, and the urgency and sinew he finds in the closing minuet of K246, where Bilson is altogether more dapper and urbane. But Van Immerseel is consistently less persuasive in the slow movements of both these concertos, which strike me as a shade graceless, even lumpish, with over-emphatic accents and a tendency to proceed bar by bar. In the miraculous K271, by some way Mozart's richest and deepest work to date, van Immerseel is, characteristically, a touch slower and sturdier in the outer movements, where Gardiner can press the tempo too hard. But against that Bilson is more subtle in his phrasing of the first movement's lyrical second-subject music, and his passage-work here and in the finale is both more artfully shaped and imbued with a stronger sense of direction, leading inexorably to the cadential climaxes. And, again, Bilson and Gardiner are far preferable in the C minor Andantino, where the orchestral bass plods ponderously and van Immerseel, for all his incidental felicities of touch, lacks the vocal eloquence and the breadth of line this music needs.
In the earlier Viennese concertos van Immerseel's steadier, more sober approach pays dividends in movements like the finale of K449 (the contrapuntal textures etched with uncommon sharpness) or the first of K450 and K459, where Gardiner and Bilson are distinctly brisk and lightweight. But the first movement of the little F major, K413, takes sobriety to the verge of sluggishness—it's surely a miscalculation to take this Allegro at the same tempo (crotchet=128) as the minuet finale. I like van Immerseel's gentle, almost introspective way with the 6/8 finale of K450, though to judge from his remarks on this work and its companion, K451, Mozart would have expected the fleeter, more consciously brilliant (and, I should add, wittier) approach of Bilson. K451, the grandest but most impersonal of the 1784 group, benefits especially from the fortepiano's capacity to blend into the orchestral texture. van Immerseel's first movement Allegro (launched by a splendid, ringing opening tutti) is very much maestoso rather than assai as indicated by Mozart, and though his thoughtful, even intimate, way with the keyboard writing is unusual and appealing, I miss Bilson's darting, glittering passage-work and the more powerful sense of direction that, characteristically, he and Gardiner bring to the music. As in one or two other movements (including the Andante of K453), van Immerseel discards Mozart's own cadenza in favour of his own. His cadenzas always have the virtue of brevity but, as here, can unfold rather aimlessly—there are remote modulations of a kind never found in Mozart's own cadenzas, and a momentary drift into Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto. It's also typical of van Immerseel that he should reject Mozart's embellishments in the C major episode of the slow movement (from 4'01'') in favour of his own decorations—which, to my ears, sound far less convincing. In any case, this movement, taken much more slowly than by Bilson, emerges as distinctly stolid.
In the more amply scored late concertos, particularly, some may find Gardiner's direction too sophisticated, too consciously shaped and inflected. But though I enjoyed the straighter, more direct playing of Anima Eterna, with its slightly less smooth string sound and its distinctive, tangy wind, I found that in almost every one of these works the Archiv set offered richer, more penetrating insights. The outer movements of K466 are more disturbing, more demonic, from Gardiner and Bilson, who seems to push his instrument to the limits, in contrast to the altogether cooler, more contained reading by van Immerseel. Something of the same contrast applies in K491, where for all the pungent wind detail van Immerseel's unusually deliberate first movement lacks urgency, passion and, in the development, a sense of ineluctably mounting tension—too often his carefully articulated semiquavers sound merely decorative. In the Romanza slow movements of both these minor-keyed concertos and of K595 Bilson is rather more liberal, and more stylish, in his ornamentation of Mozart's bare lines than van Immerseel, who also lingers over the refrain theme in K595 in a way that compromises its sublime simplicity.
Both the C major concertos are well done by van Immerseel, the Andante of K467 swiftish, sharply accented and chaste of line (Elvira Madigan associations banished once and for all), the first movements of this work and K503 (''symphonies for piano and orchestra'' indeed) expansive and majestic, with immaculate clarity of contrapuntal detail (even more than with Gardiner one is made aware of the elaborate, independent parts for woodwind, especially the flute, in K503). A pity, though, that van Immerseel's cadenzas for both first movements are rather lame and inconsequential, with un-Mozartian harmonic gambits, and that he is disinclined to provide lead-ins, as at 2'24'' in K467. Like Gardiner, van Immerseel makes the most of Mozart's ravishing wind writing in K482 and K488, in which the oboes are replaced by the deliciously woody, soft-toned period clarinets—though as ever, Gardiner encourages more moulded phrasing and a more refined, blended sound from his players. If you find Gardiner and Bilson a touch over-exquisite in the opening Allegro of K488, as I do in some moods, you'll enjoy van Immerseel's clear-eyed, firmly projected performance. But he takes the central Adagio at a briskish Andante, articulating very precisely, with the siciliano rhythm well in the foreground, and, for me, minimizing the music's pathos. And in the finale, characteristically slower and earthier than Bilson's, van Immerseel sometimes sounds a bit effortful, thumping out strong beats—something I noticed occasionally elsewhere on these discs.
In sum, then, an uneven but far from negligible survey. But I'm in no doubt that it yields to the Gardiner/Bilson cycle in expressive range, stylistic assurance and keyboard finesse; and I'd specially recommend their readings to those still unconvinced that period performances of these astonishing works can offer not only revelations of articulation, phrasing and colour, and an altogether more subtle relationship between soloist and orchestra, but also a dramatic intensity comparable with any modern-instrument versions. For good measure, Archiv also score with their superior documentation (the booklets for the new discs eschew comment on the actual works for, inter alia, dry, awkwardly translated explanations of rhetorical terms) and their more economical layout, fitting all the solo concertos on to nine mid-price, as opposed to ten full-price, discs and throwing in the multiple concertos.'