Gulda plays Mozart & Gulda (Leopold Hager) (CD, Br-Klassik)

Mozart was the most important of the ‘household gods’ of the Viennese pianist Friedrich Gulda, he played his piano music in his concerts and had it recorded. The classically trained musician, who had already played successfully in jazz bands at a young age, ignored the strict genre boundaries: he wanted to show the audience that the demarcation of musical styles always becomes meaningless when good music is honest and with you Knowledge is played. On June 27, 1982 Gulda performed again at the Munich Piano Summer. His partner was the jazz pianist Chick Corea and the collaboration between the two musicians is documented on the CD (and DVD) ‘The Meeting’, a standard in record history. So far only the well-known second part of this concert has been available, but not the first part, which Gulda designed alone and which he dedicated primarily to Mozart. In a sense, he used Mozart’s piano music as an introduction to the world of jazz improvisation. Gulda performed the first part of the legendary concert from the Deutsches Museum in the summer of 1982 for more than 40 minutes as a soloist, although he ‘only’ played Mozart’s piano sonata in C major KV 330. But he began and ended it with his own improvisations that sound little like Mozart, but in which he offers a wide range of styles and sound facets, catchy melodies and brutal sound cascades. Gulda proves to be a clever Mozart interpreter and a mischievous improviser; as a pianist who can and wants to entertain, albeit at a high level. As a transition to the second part of the concert, he performed two of his own compositions, which can also be heard on the present CD from BR Klassik. Fortunately, Bayerischer Rundfunk is now making the first part of this concert event accessible to a wide audience. The recording is framed by Mozart’s rarely heard rondos for piano and orchestra in A major KV 386 and D major KV 382. Gulda played it on October 4, 1969 in the Herkulessaal of the Munich Residence, accompanied by the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leopold Hager. There is not the slightest effort to be seen in Gulda’s joyful game; he combines Mozart with the finesse of a grandiose playing and at the same time insidiously smiling interpreter.