Uri Caine is a piano man who can bop with the best of them, then cross over to harpsichord and put any Back-to-Baroquer to shame. The American has been honing the fine art of musical mesalliance for over a decade, with his daring transformations of Bach's Goldberg Variations,
Schumann's Dichterliebe and Beethoven's Diabelli Variations.
Now it is Mozart's turn, as the Uri Caine Ensemble, which includes jazzman Ralph Alessi on trumpet and DJ Olive on turntables, gives Wolfgang a 180-degree twist.
By all means, proceed cautiously if you are a novitiate, and try the three movements of the C major Piano Sonata K 545. All feature just Caine on piano and set off in legit mode. However, a few lines into the Allegro it sounds as if a clutch of Art Tatums are tangling with Caine's fingers, while the Andante trails off in a filigree of shuddering Arabic-style improvisations.
Whole sections of the Finale from the Clarinet Quintet are similarly welcoming; sometimes it is only the odd electronic twitch or the loping rhythms of Jim Black's drums that make you realise Mozart is being ever so deviously deconstructed.
Middle Eastern mournfulness hangs over the first movement of the G minor symphony; at times the second movement of the Jupiter Symphony sounds as if it is time for the last dance in the kibbutz hall.
The Finale of the Sinfonia Concertante snaps away briskly over Black's frenetic stick work, surrounding passages that go intoxicatingly awol. Batti Batti, Zerlina's aria from Don Giovanni, could not be sweeter, although perhaps DJ Olive's turntables are suggesting that the dark forces of the French Revolution are lurking outside the gates.
In the storm-tossed take on the Queen of the Night's Aria it sounds as if the lady has invited all the hounds of hell into the studio. The Rondo alla Turca opens with a splash of local colour - a field recording of a chant, joined by Chris Speed's clarinet and Joyce Hammann's violin. Four minutes in, Mozart asserts himself, in breathless klezmer.
Try this and you'll never listen to Mozart in the same way again.
* Uri Caine Ensemble plays Mozart (Winter & Winter 910 130-2)
