About the album

The brilliant American pianist, Anne-Marie McDermott is joined by the Calder Quartet in rarely heard recordings of the chamber versions of three Mozart concertos. Writing to his father in Salzburg on 28 December 1782, Mozart explained that ‘These concertos are a happy medium between what is too easy and too difficult; they are very brilliant, pleasing to the ear, and natural without being vapid. There are passages here and there from which the connoisseurs alone can derive satisfaction; but these passages are written in such a way that the less learned cannot fail to be pleased, though without knowing why.’ On 15 January Mozart solicited subscriptions in the Wiener Zeitung for three concertos (Nos. 11-13), describing them as being with with optional wind parts, to allow performance with the accompaniment of only a string quartet. And so they are heard here.