There is no "I" in "team," and there is no "I" in "Parker," but there is an "I" in "piano." Three pianists -- brothers Jamie and
Jon Kimura Parker, and their cousin
Ian Parker -- took one for
Amadeus when they performed in this concert, part of the CBC's
Mozart anniversary celebrations held in January 2006. The recording is well done, with almost no audience noise except for the applause at the end of each concerto.
Jon Kimura Parker was the soloist for the Piano Concerto No. 21, which opened the program.
Mario Bernardi and the
CBC Radio Orchestra set the tone for the concerto -- in fact, for the whole program -- with a warm, good-natured introduction. Neither the orchestra nor
Parker is stiffly precise or elegantly formal, but they are by no means sloppy either.
Parker is matter-of-fact with the second movement, with the famous Elvira Madigan theme. He's not lacking in expression, but he tends to let the music speak for itself, as it so eloquently can, rather than add extra rubato and histrionic effects. The finale is more infectuously animated than the opening Allegro. The liner notes don't say who wrote the cadenzas, but the one in the first movement quotes
Mozart's Symphony No. 40, while the third movement cadenza hints at the Jupiter Symphony. The Concerto No. 7 for three pianos doesn't necessarily take full advantage of each of the Parkers' individual talents, but it does display their ensemble skills in a highly favorable light. They are so in sync with each other's playing, right down to the smallest crescendos, that in the first movement, small, three-note figures repeated in each part almost sound like echoes created throughout the recording process. Other than the occasional difference in the timing of trills, it just sounds like a single piano with extra thick sound. The same is true in the Concerto No. 10 for two pianos, featuring just the brothers. The concerto is the supreme example of
Mozart's skill at creating two truly equal parts for two pianists. The Parkers make this the most engaging concerto on the disc, with an even more mellifluous middle movement and joyfully lively finale than the Concerto No. 21. Here, it's the soloists who set the mood and the orchestra that follows, rather than the other way around. Given the occasion for the concert and the lineup of the three Parkers, there is a certain amount of novelty to the recording, but it doesn't detract from the music or the performance.