Jonathan Biss: Mozart
On CD and Digital Download
CD: 5099921727023
Download: 5099921727054
iTunes exclusive: 5099922725851
Jonathan Biss has committed to disc his eagerly awaited fourth album for EMI Classics, Mozart's Piano Concertos Nos. 21 (K467) and 22 (K482), recorded in concert with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Mozart's Rondo in A minor (K511) is the digital download bonus track.
Mozart composed 27 piano concertos, more than any other composer. His 21st and 22nd concertos were both composed in 1785. No. 21 in C Major is one of the greatest and best known of the concertos, as well as among the most technically demanding.
Jonathan Biss plays his own cadenzas on this recording, with one exception: "There's a wonderful recording (of K467) by Dinu Lipatti, made years and years ago," he says. "His cadenza for the last movement is so fantastic that I thought I wouldn't waste my time writing my own."
Jonathan Biss represents the third generation in a family of professional musicians. He studied at Indiana University with Evelyne Brancart and at The Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia with Leon Fleisher.
He has a flourishing international career with orchestral, recital, chamber music and festival performances in North America, Asia, and Europe, working with such conductors as Barenboim, Dutoit, Levine, Maazel, Marriner, Tilson-Thomas, Zinman and Zukerman. Biss has been singled out for his prodigious technique, intriguing programs, and artistic maturity in performances of diverse repertoire from Mozart to Schoenberg, as well as works by contemporary composers, including commissions from Leon Kirchner and Lewis Spratlan.
Of his collaboration with the multi-Grammy-Award-winning Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Jonathan says, "the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra play with so much spirit and positive energy. With Orpheus, who play without a conductor, all the rehearsals were extremely democratic. Everyone suggested ideas and we felt we could try different things. I really loved the end result. I loved the way the concert went, but much more importantly, it felt like the way we got there was so right. It was a sense of dialogue and journey and process."
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