Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos. 12 & 14 Filippo Faes, Cologne New Philharmonic Orchestra & Volker Hartung

• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 - 1770): Piano Concerto No. 12 in A Major, K. 414:
• 1 Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 12 in A Major, K. 414: I. Allegro 10:24
• 2 Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 12 in A Major, K. 414: II. Andante 07:54
• 3 Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 12 in A Major, K. 414: III. Rondeau. Allegretto 06:43
• Piano Concerto No. 14 in E-Flat Major, K. 449:
• 4 Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 14 in E-Flat Major, K. 449: I. Allegro vivace 09:02
• 5 Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 14 in E-Flat Major, K. 449: II. Andantino 08:11
• 6 Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 14 in E-Flat Major, K. 449: III. Allegro ma non troppo 06:09
• Total Runtime 48:23

Info for Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos. 12 & 14

Mozart's 12th Piano Concerto, like the piano concerto No.14 K. 449, is still part of the early Viennese concertos. Still, in terms of content and form, it moves further away from this creative phase and points to the second group of Viennese concertos, which begins with the 15th Piano Concerto. He wrote both concertos as early as 1782.

With the 14th Piano Concerto, Mozart is at the crossroads from the old form to a new classical concept of the piano concerto. He states that he treats the wind instruments ad libitum one last time. In a letter to his father in 1784, Mozart reported: "This is a concerto of an extraordinary kind, and written more for a small than a large orchestra." The accompaniment can also be played with string instruments. In this recording, K. 414 is played with an accompanying string orchestra, whereas K.415 is presented with a full orchestra, including wind players.

The soloist is the celebrated Italian Pianist Filippo Faes, one of the long-time favorite artists performing Volker Hartung and his Cologne New Philharmonic Orchestra.

Filippo Faes, piano
Cologne New Philharmonic Orchestra
Volker Hartung, conductor

Filippo Faes
After his victory at the International Schubert Competition in Dortmund in 1989, Filippo Faeswas celebrated by the press as one of the most profound and creative performers of his generation(“he played the Sonata in C minor and Schubert came breathtakingly close to us“ – Westfälische Rundschau, and “probably, since the days of Schnabel or Erdmann we have not heard the Schubert Sonatasbeing performed in such an intense, musical way“). For seven years in a row he was invited as a soloist with orchestra in great concert halls like Kölner Philharmonie and Musikhalle Hamburg, both sold out time after time. His debuts at Berlin Philharmonic, Gasteig Munich, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, BBC International Recitals London, Mishkenot CenterJerusalem, Stravinsky Hall in Montreux, Palais des Beaux Artes in Bruxelles, Palais de la Musique in Strasbourg and performances with conductors like Piero Bellugi, Alun Francis, Volker Hartung, Peter Maag, Carl Melles, José Serebrier, Leon Spierer were just as successful.

Especially acclaimed as a supreme and original interpreter of Schubert, Filippo Faes performed the complete series of his piano sonatas repeatedly, he participated in several Schubertiade concerts (such as his participation at Schwetzinger Festspiele 1997 – together with Lisa Leonskaja, the Prazak Quartet and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau). He has conducted most of Schubert’s symphonies. His programs on Schubert and his music have been broadcasted by Italian radio and television. In Italy Filippo Faes is a regular guest of the most important institutions and orchestras. Titles of his reviews include: “musician from another epoch turned into a poetby Schubert“(Il Giornale nuovo, Genoa) or “an immersion into Beethoven‘s depths that makes us holdour breath“(Corriere della sera, Milan).

A passionate chamber musician amongst his partners have been Ulf Rodenhäuser, Babette Dorn, Alexander Hülshoff, Christoph Henkel, Anna Serova, Eszter Haffner, Bruno Giuranna, Salvatore Accardo, Toby Hoffmann and many others. As a conductor he is often engaged in the performance and diffusion of contemporary music: in June 2009 he conducted the world première of the opera Giocastaby Azio Corghi at the Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza (with the Swingle Singers and the narrating voice of Chiara Muti).

He also directed various original projects (like the remake of Ingmar Bergman‘s version of PeerGynt and the Schönberg/Riehn version of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde) with some of the leading Italian chamber orchestras. In July 2009 he was artistic director and conductor of the multimedia-futuristic opera L’Incendiario elettrico, created and performed by students and faculties of seven European universities and conservatoires, under the supervision of the Conservatoire of Castelfranco Veneto. The Opera was performed and recorded at the Teatro Accademico, a DVD has been published for the label Al Gran Sole.

Filippo Faes is the author of many television programs on music (like 10 Conversations at the Piano produced by RAI SAT in 1999). He has directed projects like Che Musica parli? (Can Music talk?) in Montebelluna 2006, E se chiedessimo a Beethoven? (Suppose we asked Beethoven?), in the historical Palazzo Leoni Montanariin Vicenza (since 2006) and Scintille (Sparkles) in Treviso (2013), series of lecture concerts in order to discover, together with groups of university and high school students, the formidable power of communication Music can possess and to discuss how it can transform our world.

Filippo Faes is Professor of Chamber Music, Piano and Lied Interpretation at the Conservatoire of Castelfranco Veneto and gives masterclasses in Europe, the USA, South America, New Zealand and Singapore.

Booklet for Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos. 12 & 14