This release by pianist Hélène Grimaud and the Camerata Salzburg was recorded, and very nicely, at the University of Salzburg's Große Universitätsaula in January of 2020. The album's graphics and annotations offer pictures of Grimaud standing in long grass in woods, although clearly not dressed for a hike, and reflect on such issues as the role of art in a pandemic. Of course, when the music was recorded, few were worried about this development, and other aspects of the album are a bit gauzy, although certainly attractive for listeners wanting a reflective hour. Grimaud's program is innovative, especially by the standards of the venerable Deutsche Grammophon label. She divides it into two parts, the first including Mozart's two big Fantasies for piano, the first shorn of its ending (as Mozart might have done) to introduce the Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, D. 466. The second consists of works by contemporary composer Valentin Silvestrov, who has made a specialty of what he sometimes calls dialogues with the music of the past. Listen to one of the two versions of The Messenger, where Mozart is the subject of the dialogue. Silvestrov uses Mozartian ideas as a kind of sonic wash, quietly making themselves known intermittently in the music, while the three-movement Two Dialogues with Postscript is vaguely Schubertian. The pieces are intriguing; despite the mood-music feel, Silvestrov is not using the music of the past in a nostalgic way but is seeking a unique modern relationship with it. Grimaud's clean reading of the Mozart concerto forms a contrast with the Silvestrov works. One wonders whether the more lightly lyrical Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major, K. 467 ("Elvira Madigan"), might have served Grimaud's purposes better, but this release is both adventurous and basically pleasurable.
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