My apologies to Bob Draper when he wrote:

>there are dozens and dozens of versions of most of the Mozart ouvre so
>the word must be being spread correctly somewhere.

I'm afraid that *I* misunderstood *you*.  You are wondering of course
why Mozart has not been 'revealed' to you if, as I claim, there are
'revelatory' recordings out there.  Well, as I said, they are not easy to
find, and this seems to be especially true in the case of Mozart, where
there are no interpretations which come instantly to mind in the manner
of, eg Rachmaninoff's Carnaval, or Ernst Levy's Liszt Sonata, or Cortot's
Chopin preludes.  For this reason I would not count Mozart recordings among
any of my desert island discs.  However, here are some suggestions of
records which have at least gone some way towards stimulating my
imagination:

Geza Anda, as I said, in many of the concertos.  He does not play all the
figuration 'non-legato', but uses various touches according to the context.
This brings the piano part alive.  He also has a keen sense of the musical
rhetoric.  Listen to the ghostly conclusion of the 1st movement of the C
minor concerto.  And here even K 503 is made exciting and vital.

Arthur Grumiaux with some others in the string quintets - similar virtues.

Furtwaengler directing some wind players in the Gran Partita? in B flat? -
this, contrary to expectations, is stylish and in a word fantastic.

Beecham or, perhaps Walter in some of the symphonies - not cold or dull
here, but properly festive.

I don't know Schnabel in some of the piano Sonatas, but they are supposed
to be very eloquent.

It is more likely to be accurate and scholarly performances of Mozart's
works that will give you, as you say, 'a false view of their value' than
these recordings, which may be 'wrong' on one level, but look much more
directly at the rhetorical and dramatic content of the notes.

Of course, if you are not 'converted' after listening to these, you just
have a blind spot.

Felix Delbruck
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