Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos. 22 & 25

David Fray (piano), Philharmonia Orchestra, Jaap van Zweden

Erato/2010

About

David Fray – named Instrumentalist of the Year in France’s Victoires de la Musique 2010 – retains his focus on Austro-German repertoire with his second CD of concertos for Virgin Classics: Mozart’s Concertos Nos 22 and 25 with London’s Philharmonia Orchestra under Dutch violinist-turned-conductor (and Music Director of the Dallas Symphony), Jaap van Zweden.

“Above all, I would like to advocate a certain vision of music and to make it accessible without altering its value or the level on which it operates.” David Fray – Instrumentalist of the Year in France’s Victoires de la Musique 2010 – turns to Mozart for his second CD of concertos for Virgin Classics. The response of The Sunday Times to his last solo release was: “No Schubert-lover should miss this piano recital by David Fray,” while The Guardian evoked “pianism of the highest class”.

Fray’s last release was a solo programme of Schubert, a figure who embodies the transition to Romanticism from the Classicism of Mozart, a fellow Austrian. The recital was praised by the critics for its distinctive and many-layered interpretation: “No Schubert-lover should miss this piano recital by David Fray,” urged the BBC Music Magazine, while The Sunday Times felt that: “These are wonderful performances by the young French pianist David Fray, a player with a beautiful touch and the finest control of dynamics and chording … By taking his time, without ever weakening the music’s inexorable momentum, Fray fills every note with meaning, in such a way that we feel intensely each mercurial change of mood and colour and texture, relish Schubert’s astonishing harmonic invention to the full, and relive the heartbreak, the ferocity, the elation, the visionary flights of these inexhaustible works.” The Guardian was enthused by “the sheer lucidity and polish of Fray’s playing, its exceptional command of colour and touch, and the way he invariably uses that range of sound to point up musical structures in a meaningful way … pianism of the highest class.”

Reviews

“Fray has an instinctive Mozartean affinity – he communicates fresh ideas with subtle, stylistic deftness…Throughout, Fray and Zweden work together with remarkable symbiosis.” – BBC

“Fray has an instinctive Mozartean affinity – he communicates fresh ideas with subtle, stylistic deftness…Throughout, Fray and Zweden work together with remarkable symbiosis.” – **** The Sunday Telegraph

“with superb orchestral support from the Philharmonia and Jaap van Zweden, [Fray] makes no apologies for presenting them in a suitably grand, rather old-fashioned way…The range of colour he draws from the instrument, later in that same movement of K503 but also in its equivalent in the E flat concerto K482, is exquisite, each phrase perfectly weighted.” – **** Guardian 

 

Video
Tracklisting

Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 22 in E flat major, K482
I. Allegro
II. Andante
III. Allegro

Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 25 in C major, K503
I. Allegro maestoso
II. Andante
III. Allegretto

X