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Mozart: Piano Concertos 6, 15, 27.

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MOZART: Piano Concertos 6, 15, 27 Pierre-Laurent Aimard; Chamber Orchestra of Europe--Warner 62259--77 minutes

Piano Concertos 12-14, 23; Rondo, K 382 Jeremy Menuhin; English Symphony Nimbus 5749 [2CD] 139 minutes

It is no coincidence that Mozart's compositional style underwent a profound metamorphosis in the young composer's 25th year. Just consider the upheavals that occurred in his personal life; he forced a confrontation with his stingy and ungrateful employer, the Archbishop of Salzburg, who terminated the argument by ordering his footmen to chuck Mozart bodily into the street--whereupon Mozart made the defiant but risky vow that he would henceforth earn his living as a freelancer--not even the great Haydn had managed to do that--beholden no more to the whims of fickle aristocrats. And then, having made this reckless decision, he compounded his folly with his usual gift of bad timing--by paying court to the pretty young actress Constanze Weber with such ardent persistence that she finally agreed to marry him, and thereby condemned herself to a decade of grinding poverty, watching her husband work himself to death trying to achieve a degree of financial independence that remained maddeningly just out-of-reach.

All of these dramatic changes were, however unconsciously on Mozart's part, elements of a much larger problem: how to liberate himself from the control of his stern and demanding father, who, naturally, did everything in his power to thwart a son who was also his meal...

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