Prodigious Mozart

The 250th Mozart anniversary year still has four months to go, but frankly, it feels like the tribute has overstayed its welcome, with Mozart, and then more Mozart, on seemingly every concert and CD release. But it doesn't feel that way with a new recording of Mozart's early piano concertos, featuring David Greilsammer, a young Israeli pianist who earned both a bachelor's and a master's degree in piano from Juilliard, in 2002 and 2004 respectively.

Perhaps that's because Greilsammer took an unusually entrepreneurial approach in making this recording. Besides playing the solo parts (for which he composed some very unique cadenzas), he formed his own orchestra, wrote the liner notes, chose the cover art, and sold the entire project to the Vanguard Classics label. In a recent interview, Greilsammer said he chose three early concertos over Mozart's better known later ones in part because of supply and demand. "They've been recorded a million times," he said of the late concertos. "Why would any performer want to record them?"

But there was also an artistic logic at work. Greilsammer said he first stumbled upon the early concertos while in the Juilliard library preparing for his graduation recital and he was surprised by how seldom they're heard. "I thought, 'I've been here for six years. How come nobody told me how beautiful and what true masterpieces they are?'" he said. "They're so fresh and there are so many risks taken [in the writing]. This was the voice of a composer who for the first time says, 'I have something of my own to say.'"

Besides choosing the repertoire, Greilsammer said he wanted to have greater creative control over the performances and so he formed the Suedama Ensemble, a young chamber orchestra comprised of mainly Juilliard students and recent graduates. Its name, if you didn't already notice, is "Amadeus" spelled backwards. "When Mozart was a kid he loved to play tricks on people and he used to sign a lot of his letters backwards," Greilsammer explained. "The whole project is in that spirit of youthfulness."

Together, these three concertos reveal the elegance, playfulness, and craftsmanship that Mozart would later blend with a greater flair for operatic drama and darker emotions. The album's centerpiece is the Concerto in D, K. 175, which is traditionally labeled No. 5 although it is his first truly original concerto (the first four are arrangements mostly of works by J.C. Bach). This festive concerto plays to Greilsammer's strengths—his fleet fingerwork, a strong left hand, and tasteful ornaments. The Concerto No. 6 in B-flat, K. 238, poses far fewer technical demands but has a gracious, majestic tone that Greilsammer and his colleagues carry out with impeccable taste. And finally, the Concerto No. 8 in C, K. 246, brings Greilsammer and his colleagues back into somewhat more assertive territory, and Greilsammer shows a particular attention to the rise and fall of phrases and nuances of color and tempo.

Greilsammer calls his recording a "true New York product," describing how it began with a meeting with the label executives at City Bakery on West 18th Street, continued with rehearsals at Grace and St. Paul's Church on West 71st Street, recording sessions at the Academy of Arts and Letters in Washington Heights, and final edits at a recording studio in Brooklyn. Clearly the many taxi and subway rides have paid off.

Mention this column at the Juilliard Bookstore to receive a 5-percent discount on this month's featured recordings. (In-store purchases only.)

Brian Wise is a producer at WNYC radio and writes about music for The New York Times, Time Out New York, Opera News, and other publications.