Richard Pennycuick wrote:


Deryk Barker confessed to:
>
>>not enjoying Nos.25 and 26 (the 'Coronation') as much
>
>...an opinion I've seen before from others in MCML.  I've never seen any
>reason to regard them as inferior to the others.  What am I missing?

The question might better be, "what are the concertos' detractors missing"!

No. 25 has always been my favorite Mozart Concerto, possibly because it
was my first LP, bought sight unseen, or rather, sound unheard, in 1950, at
Sam Goody's on 8th Avenue in Manhattan.  It was a VOX LP w/ Gaby Casadesus
as the pianist and Eugene Bigot conducting the Lamoureux Orchestra.  The
writer of the jacket note, Michael Hauptman, described it as a "towering
summit, almost completely overshadowing such giants as D MINOR (K466), the
first C MAJOR (K467), and the tragic C MINOR (K491)."

I'd back off from the "completely overshadowing" comment, but I'd consider
it on a level with the above mentioned works.  It received its first
performance in Vienna in 1786 w/ Mozart appearing as conductor and soloist
and then received no public performance whatsoever until 1934 at a concert
of the Vienna Philharmonic, with Artur Schnabel as soloist and Georg Szell
as Conductor.  It has, however always been available, since it was
published by Mozart's widow, Constanze, in 1798 at her own expense, and it
had frequently been quoted and analyzed by both 19th and 20th century
musicologists.

Walter Meyer