Beethoven Piano Concerto no.4 Mozart Piano Concerto no.25 (1990)

Beethoven - Concerto No. 4 for Piano and Orchestra in G Major, Op. 58
1. I. Allegro Moderato		18:00
2. II. Andante con moto 	5:07
3. III. Rondo: Vivace 	9:03
Mozart - Concerto No. 25 in C Major for Piano and Orchestra, K. 503
4. I. Allegro maestoso		14:32
5. II. Andante		7:28
6. III. Allegretto		8:00

Leon Fleisher - piano
The Cleveland Orchestra
George Szell – conductor
(CBS Masterworks – Great Performers 49)

There are some classical recordings that have such a timelessness about them that when they hit a milestone in their existence, it is flat-out impressive.

Such is the case with this 1959 recording by the great American pianist Leon Fleisher of two highly involved standards in the piano concerto repertoire: the Piano Concerto No. 4 of Beethoven, and the Piano Concerto No. 25 of Mozart. Both works may have been separated by twenty-one years of creation, but each work was important to the development of the piano concerto repertoire as it evolved throughout the Classical Era and on into the Romantic period. The 25th Piano Concerto, composed in 1786, is one of Mozart's longest concertos, at just slightly over half an hour, and is an extremely elaborate piece for any pianist to handle, and it is also in the same key (C Major) as the better-known "Elvira Madigan" concerto (No. 21) of two years before. And the Fourth Concerto, which Beethoven composed around 1807, has many of the hallmarks of the companion piece on this recording--a remarkable feat, given that Beethoven had overcome his first confrontation with deafness and had gone on a monstrous four-year streak of composing that only Mozart or Schubert surpassed, either in quantity or quality.

Both concertos are scored for roughly equal orchestral forces; and at the time of this recording, the American orchestra most equipped to handle these warhorses of the Viennese classical repertoire was the Cleveland Orchestra and its admittedly temperamental but nevertheless concise music director George Szell. In both concertos, both Fleisher and Szell definitely get along like a house on fire, and the orchestra itself, by that time considered to be one of the great classical orchestras on the planet, does an incredible job of accompaniment, befitting an ensemble well-schooled by a conductor who learned his craft by experience in Vienna, Berlin, and Prague before wisely settling in America in 1939.

This may be a fifty year-old recording now in 2009, but it sure doesn't feel like it. It truly is an important recording for any classical music fan to have in their repertoire for the sheer sake of having two genius' great concertos performed with such precision by one of America's great classical pianists, a great American orchestra, and one of the great conductors of the 20th century. --- Erik North (San Gabriel, CA USA)

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