Hélène Grimaud – Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 23: II. Adagio

Hélène Grimaud considers the concerto in A major “probably the most sublime concerto Mozart ever wrote“, with a slow movement that is “an extremely deep and painful expression of longing, where you find the real Mozart.“ The concerto was a ’must-have’ for this collaboration. The concerto in F major K459 is less well-known, but with a very special vitality and a virtuosic finale that is for Grimaud, “pure pianistic pleasure“. Besides the two concertos, the album includes the beautiful concert aria for orchestra, soprano and piano ’Ch’io mi scordi di te’, sung by Mojca Erdmann. The aria was Mozart’s declaration of love to the soprano Nancy Storace, his Susanna in the world premiere of “Le nozze di Figaro“. It was composed in 1786, the same year as the Piano Concerto which it joins here. Watch Hélène Grimaud play the Adagio from Mozart’s Piano Concerto no. 23, which recorded for her new album marking two ’firsts’ for Hélène Grimaud - her first live DG recording and her first ever Mozart concerto recording.