Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K.466
Piano Sonata No.3 in B-flat major, K.281
Piano Sonata No.12 in F major, K.332

Following the surprisingly immense, world-wide popularity of the movie Amadeus released in 1984, all record labels and especially the major ones, wanting to profit from this renewed interest in the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791), started to release batch after batch of new recordings of his music, all at the time when the newfangled CD was just starting to gain ground and labels were hard at work transfering all the old vinyl stuff to the new format. Then only seven years later in 1991, all record labels just had to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the composer's death by not only releasing even more new recordings, but also repackaging, rereleasing, reissuing, reformating, and recreating budget and special anniversary series upon series and collections of his music. And again in 2006, they just had to celebrate the 250th anniversary of his birth by doing the same thing over and over again. I was managing music store classical departments at the time, and let me say that the Mozart sections ballooned out of proportion to everything else, and that the whole money-grabbing exercise on the part of the industry left a bitter taste in my mouth.

I believe that by now the dust most likely has completely settled, and that musicians are now performing and recording the music of Mozart not because they "have" to, but because they "want" to, and feel they have something noteworthy to share with the audience.

South Korean pianist Seong-Jin Cho won the First Prize at the 2015 Chopin International Competition in Warsaw. In 2016, he signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon, one of the most illustrious classical music labels. He has already released two recordings for the label which include a Chopin Piano Concerto and solo piano works by Claude Debussy, both of which have received critical acclaim worldwide. And if this new Mozart recording is any indication, I can understand why. There's a perfect blend of refinement and rhythmic vitality in his playing. Combine that with precision of attack, precise phrasing, fluid dynamic control and expressive discourse on the fly, and you have an effective combination of skills that lend his playing a lyrical quality. And what I find most impressive is the perfect balance he achieves between his left and right hand, as if they are holding their own personal conversation within the general interplay between piano and orchestra, with the left hand having just as much to say as the right hand. And conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin's dramatic perspective of the orchestral writing in the concerto, adds an operatic touch to the whole experience.