Mozart Week Salzburg: soloist brilliance of Levit and Uchida
Igor Levit, but especially Mitsuko Uchida, shone in what has been a mixed festival so far. Some of the conductors in particular were disappointing, such as Roberto Ticciati, who stepped in for Barenboim.
First the conductor said Daniel Barenboimdue to illness at the first concert of the Wiener Philharmoniker at the Mozart Week, a little later Martha Argerich, with which he wanted to perform Mozart’s Concerto for Two Pianos. Attempts to persuade her to contest this with her prominent colleague Maria João Pires failed. In the end, the double concerto turned into a piano concerto from Mozart’s middle creative period: the A major concerto KV 414 Igor Levit engaged, who thus celebrated his acclaimed debut at the Mozart Week.
He presented Part with masterful precision, with its differentiated dynamic shading and thoughtfully balanced details. The two outer movements were the most concise, while the middle movement lacked some depth. The rhythmic finesse of the introductory Allegro could have been worked out more elegantly at a slower tempo. And you don’t have to rush through the Allegretto in the final as casually sporty as the Philharmonic showed under the conductor Roberto Ticciati, who stepped in for Barenboim. This is mainly at the expense of the charm of this music.