Royal Albert corridor,London[br]Daniel Barenboim’s subtle touch in a Mozart piano concerto and the immense solitariness of Bruckner’s Sixth Symphony stood out in this final-week PromFor his moment Mozart concerto and Bruckner symphony pairing of the final Proms week, Daniel Barenboim matched two relatively neglected works in each category. It made for a particularly fruitful piece of programming, and the mental heft of the performances underlined that these Staatskapelle Berlin concerts have been far more than just a Daniel Barenboim show.
Mozart’s penultimate piano concerto,in D major, K537, and has long been a Barenboim favourite. Conducting from the keyboard,speeds were leisurely, but Barenboim was utterly engaged, or savouring the work’s dynamic contrasts and the solo fraction’s many opportunities for competitive interplay with the orchestra. His preferred choice of Wanda Landowska’s grandly conceived first-movement cadenza brought operatic echoes,but it was the subtly varied manner in which he weighted his keyboard touch that made the strongest impression.
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Source: theguardian.com