Postscript: Pires in Mozart

In a short interview before a recent broadcast (30th January 2017), Pires said that she finds playing Mozart "very difficult" (Heifetz said the same). Pires added that sometimes she loves Mozart's music, sometimes she dislikes it. An interesting perspective. Her 2017 performances of K 488 and K 595 are, if anything, better than her versions of a few years ago. Robert Ticciati and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra are no match for Abbado and his hand-picked orchestras, and Ticciati – or the BBC balance engineers – need to learn about the importance of prioritising the wind band in Mozart (something Klemperer and Abbado understood). Fortunately, in the Mozart piano concertos the orchestra plays a subsidiary role; Mozart made sure the focus was on the pianist! So Ticciati and his Scots are merely "perfectly adequate". But Pires is supreme in this music.