This well-known piano concerto by Mozart was here played in its transcription for two pianos by the British composer Benjamin Britten, who was one of Richter's best friends, and the maestro himself. It's a strange event in that Richter seemed angered and bored at the end and hacked down the last chords in a way that made Britten smile at him in surprise. Richter admitted in various interviews that he was unable to play Mozart, that he did not understand Mozart, and this present recording is about the best proof there is for this fact. I am quite certain Richter played it only because Britten himself was the host, and Britten surely likes that concerto, which is obvious from his engaged and delighted face expression. I do not know one single Mozart recording by Richter that could even be qualified as acceptable. They are all bottomline and worse. And sometimes I wonder if it's that Richter never could assimilate the spirit of the Rococo, with its strong emphasis on pleasure and physical love that is the true reason for this blind spot? Because Richter was a real Puritan from what I have heard from various sources, and seen myself when talking about him with his wife Nina Dorliac and another female artist. They talked about him as if he were a living marble statue, not a human being. Dorliac looked like the proverbial dried-out virgin, and that they were married was a nice expression. Fact is that Richter was time of his life married with only one partner: the piano, and there was no space for another! So it's perhaps explainable why Richter played the dry Haydn very well, while he remained completely closed, and even hostile, toward the childlike and sensual Mozart. - Review by Pierre F. Walter
