Album Review: Mozart, Helen Grimaud

Helene Grimaud, Mozart. Photo / Supplied

Helene Grimaud can always be relied on to take her own angle when putting together a CD. Her 2003 Credo album had Beethoven sandwiched between John Corigliano and Arvo Part.

Last year's Resonances saw the pianist putting down her first Mozart on disc, in the unexpected company of Liszt, Berg and Bartok.

Mozart now has a CD to himself in her new pairing of the K 459 and 488 Concertos, playing alongside the Kammerorchester des bayerischen rundfunks.

The third work included, the concert aria Ch'io mi scordi di te, might have seemed promising. But alas, this lovely piece has been burdened with soprano Mojca Erdmann, a singer more dull than dulcet, whose Deutsche Grammophon debut last year proved that a prettified cover shoot does not necessarily a Mozartian make.

The aria is all the more disappointing, too, with Grimaud spinning silly theories in the booklet about it being an expression of love, with the voice and piano potentially designated to different gender roles.

On her own, Grimaud takes some provocative liberties, particularly in the Adagio from the A major Concerto. She is at pains in the booklet to justify this movement's extreme slowness, which at times comes perilously close to slumping over the border to sluggish.

Other wilfulnesses range from lingering over some passagework in the first movement, as if taking it for a saunter in Schumann's garden, to the heavy growling of a Busoni cadenza.

That being said, the German orchestra is a constant joy, recorded in concert in Munich just six months ago. Woodwind are a wonder, with the Deutsche Grammophon engineers catching many moments that too often remain a mystery in other recordings.

The F major Concerto may be a slighter work but the orchestra sets up high hopes with its vigorous introduction. Predictably, it is let down badly by a piano part that needs much more discretion as far as shading is concerned.

Some ground is regained in the slow movement - an Allegretto that eventually twists into the minor for more searching emotions - but it is irretrievably lost in a hurtling, brutal Finale.


Mozart: Helene Grimaud
(Deutsche Grammophon)

Stars: 3/5

Verdict: "French pianist disappoints in first all-Mozart excursion."