你好 Talk about productivity, nothing has ever equaled Mozart’s musical output from 1784-86. Not only did he write the opera “The Marriage of Figaro”, he wrote the Prague Symphony, and the six quartets dedicated to Haydn, twelve piano concertos, six of which date from one year, 1784. Wow! Given the quality of the work, this has got to be one of the greatest feats of musical genius the world has ever known.

Not only did Mozart compose all this music, he taught students as well. It was the only way to keep a roof over his head, food on the table, and clothes on his back - seeing that Mozart was one of the first free-lance composers, without the court or church job, that musicians traditionally had up to this time. And he’d practically gone through all the money he’d made from his smash opera “The Abduction from the Seraglio”. At the age of twenty-eight his musical genius was well developed, but his political skills were, to put it mildly, on the thin side, so working for a local noble or municipal/church authority was out of the question.

As a child prodigy, Mozart had been a nomad, dragged all over Europe by his father to perform in front of the courts of Europe. So as one of the first cosmopolitans, Mozart absorbed all the music styles of his time. Which made him an amazingly facile composer. But the more I’ve been able to hear the work of other musicians of his time, the more I’ve come to see what relative mediocrities they were. Their curse is simply that they didn’t have Mozart’s inventive genius.

It’s not the well mannered surface ease with which Mozart expressed himself, that’s made his music last. There’s something else, another layer of meaning. There’s the unique, international Mozartian voice that develops and grows throughout his work. It makes listening to the other composers from the late 18^th century, Antonio Salieri, Clementi, and Stamitz, sound like they are just going through the motions, phoning their work in. Hasse, an operatic composer heard Mozart’s music and wrote that it would probably consign all of the competition to the garbage heap. And as it turned out, he was right on the money.

What’s in our player now: Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 17 K. 453, and Piano Concerto No. 18, K.456 Murray Perahia/English Chamber Orchestra – Sony SMK 36686

Murray Perahia is one of the world’s greatest living pianists. And these piano concerto recordings made in the early 80’s, are a perfect example of what makes his playing so very special. Perahia doesn’t flash and flail, performing like the virtuosos of old. He has mastered the very difficult art of making the complex seem simple.

My favorite, Concerto No. 17, was one Mozart wrote for one of his well-heeled pupils, Barbara Ployer. Mozart evidently thought very highly of her, since he also wrote the Piano Concerto No. 14 for her as well as the Sonata for Two Pianos. Ms. Ployer was the first person to perform the concerto at her father’s, a wealthy Viennese official’s house.

The slow movement, known as the Rhondo is particularly beautifully movingly done. Perahia’s style of playing is almost that of a singer, and is radiant. Occasionally, I hear a hushed, overly genteel touch to it, like Perahia is self-consciously holding back, when a stronger, more straight-forward treatment would work ever better. But these quibbles are virtually nothing compared to what Perahia has managed to bring off, some of the most scintillating Mozart I’ve heard played in a long time. The more I listen, the more impressed I become.

J.Mark Goldman