Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos. 9 & 25
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79454
Track Listing
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114:38
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27:23
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38:32
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410:18
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511:23
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610:10
News & Reviews
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Brad Mehldau’s Variations on a Melancholy Theme is out now. The recording features the pianist/composer and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, which commissioned this orchestral version of the work—a theme and eleven variations plus a cadenza and postlude. The album also includes an encore, “Variations ‘X’ and ‘Y.'" "I imagine it as if Brahms woke up one day and had the blues," Mehldau says of the piece, which combines the classical form with jazz harmonies. "While the theme evokes melancholy, I let it be used as a springboard for other happy, wild, violent, and reckless emotions as the variations progress." You can watch a video for Variation 4 here.
Brad Mehldau’s Variations on a Melancholy Theme is due June 11, 2021, on Nonesuch. The recording features the pianist/composer and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, which commissioned this orchestral version of the work—a theme and eleven variations plus a cadenza and postlude. The album also includes an encore, “Variations ‘X’ and ‘Y.'" "I imagine it as if Brahms woke up one day and had the blues," Mehldau says of the piece, which combines the classical form with jazz harmonies. "While the theme evokes melancholy, I let it be used as a springboard for other happy, wild, violent, and reckless emotions as the variations progress." You can watch a video with excerpts from the piece here.
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About This Album
After a season of touring together throughout the US in 1998, Richard Goode and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra offered the second installment in a series of Mozart piano concertos that reveals a partnership in its prime, featuring the concerto No. 9 in E-flat Major, K. 271, and No. 25 in C Major, K. 503. David Mermelstein of the New York Times describes the recording as "fresh, energetic Mozart certain to tickle the fancy of anyone who delights in inspired music-making. Mr. Goode is an esteemed artist, technically adept and intellectually rigorous … On this disk, his efforts are a constant joy.”
The Goode/Orpheus Mozart project has received widespread international recognition since the release of their first Grammy-nominated CD in 1997. That disc received Gramophone magazine’s Record of the Month award in April 1997 and was voted Stereo Review’s Record of the Year. The New York Times described Goode’s performance of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20 in D Minor, K. 466, on the inaugural disc as “temperamental and dramatic … a darkly Beethovenian interpretation of one of Mozart’s most Beethovenian works.” The third release in the series, a recording of the Mozart concertos Nos. 23 and 24, was described by The New Yorker as “intense performances of profound pieces.”Credits
MUSICIANS
Richard Goode, piano; cadenza composer (1–3)
Orpheus Chamber OrchestraPRODUCTION CREDITS
Produced by Max Wilcox
Recorded February and December 1997 at Manhattan Center, New York City
Recording Engineers: Max Wilcox and Paul Zinman
Design by Colleen Meade
Photographs by John Halpern
Executive Producer: Robert Hurwitz
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The New York Times describes this second in a series of Mozart piano concerto recordings as "fresh, energetic Mozart certain to tickle the fancy of anyone who delights in inspired music-making. Mr. Goode is an esteemed artist, technically adept and intellectually rigorous … On this disk, his efforts are a constant joy.”
After a season of touring together throughout the US in 1998, Richard Goode and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra offered the second installment in a series of Mozart piano concertos that reveals a partnership in its prime, featuring the concerto No. 9 in E-flat Major, K. 271, and No. 25 in C Major, K. 503. David Mermelstein of the New York Times describes the recording as "fresh, energetic Mozart certain to tickle the fancy of anyone who delights in inspired music-making. Mr. Goode is an esteemed artist, technically adept and intellectually rigorous … On this disk, his efforts are a constant joy.”
The Goode/Orpheus Mozart project has received widespread international recognition since the release of their first Grammy-nominated CD in 1997. That disc received Gramophone magazine’s Record of the Month award in April 1997 and was voted Stereo Review’s Record of the Year. The New York Times described Goode’s performance of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20 in D Minor, K. 466, on the inaugural disc as “temperamental and dramatic … a darkly Beethovenian interpretation of one of Mozart’s most Beethovenian works.” The third release in the series, a recording of the Mozart concertos Nos. 23 and 24, was described by The New Yorker as “intense performances of profound pieces.”
PRODUCTION CREDITS
Produced by Max Wilcox
Recorded February and December 1997 at Manhattan Center, New York City
Recording Engineers: Max Wilcox and Paul Zinman
Design by Colleen Meade
Photographs by John Halpern
Executive Producer: Robert Hurwitz

79454
MUSICIANS
Richard Goode, piano; cadenza composer (1–3)
Orpheus Chamber Orchestra