Rudolf Serkin, Claudio Abbado - Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos. 20 & 12 (1982)

This new recording of...the great D minor, K466, made last November with the LSO under Abbado, is immensely welcome. The old magic is still there: the ability to make every semiquaver in a run count: the way he can invest even quite 'innocent' music...with real meaning and character; the pathos and lyricism he brings to the slow movements; and the tension and drama he reveals in the outer movements of K466. He plays...Beethoven's [cadenza] in K466: he adds no ornamentation in the slow movement of K466 (as some pianists, among them Gulda also on DG—and Brendel on Philips, quite legitimately do); and here and there I fancied I heard some restrained, Casals-like, vocal contribution—but what does it matter? This is playing of tremendous authority, character and sensitivity, and Serkin is, rightly, given strong and responsive support by Abbado and the LSO, and an appropriately spacious, mellow digital recording by DG.