Louis Kentner BBC Broadcast: Mozart Sonata No.18 in D Major KV 576

Описание: A BBC broadcast featuring Hungarian (naturalized British) pianist Louis (Lajos) Kentner playing Mozart's Piano Sonata No.18 in D Major KV 576.

The esteemed artist was particularly known for his performances of Liszt - he was for many years the president of the British Liszt Society - but equally respected for his performances in a wide range of repertoire, from the classics through to less explored works by Lyapunov and Balakirev through to his contemporaries Bartok and Ronald Stevenson. He played late into his long life, maintaining incredible command and power at the piano, as evidenced by some audio and filmed performances from his later years.

This undated BBC studio performance (provided to me by collector Nicholas Brown, to whom all thanks) captures the pianist in fine form in repertoire less represented in his broad studio discography - he recorded this work in 1959 (the broadcast may well derive from this general time period) and only two other Mozart Piano Concertos in his half-century before the microphone (the rest of the Mozart he recorded consists of chamber music). As always in Kentner's performances, we hear exquisite tonal colours, impeccable articulation, natural phrasing, transparent voicing, all serving his unostentatious conception of the music - never an exaggerated gesture yet always with feeling and poise.