Mozart: Piano Concertos No. 17, K.453 & No. 24, K.491 Orli Shaham, David Robertson, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra

• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 - 1791): Piano Concerto No.17 in G Major, K.453:
• 1 Mozart: Piano Concerto No.17 in G Major, K.453: I. Allegro 12:26
• 2 Mozart: Piano Concerto No.17 in G Major, K.453: II. Andante 09:52
• 3 Mozart: Piano Concerto No.17 in G Major, K.453: III. Allegretto 07:43
• Piano Concerto No.24 in C Minor, K.491:
• 4 Mozart: Piano Concerto No.24 in C Minor, K.491: I. Allegro 13:16
• 5 Mozart: Piano Concerto No.24 in C Minor, K.491: II. Larghetto 07:04
• 6 Mozart: Piano Concerto No.24 in C Minor, K.491: III. Allegretto 08:43
• Total Runtime 59:04

Info for Mozart: Piano Concertos No. 17, K.453 & No. 24, K.491

Orli Shaham revels in the theatrical richness and breath taking invention of Mozart's Piano Concertos joining forces with David Robertson and St. Louis Symphony Orchestra for this studio recording of No.17 in G Major, K.453 and No. 24 in C minor, K.491.

The underlying inspiration for Orli Shaham's recording of Mozart concertos is her passion to record music that has spoken to her, and driven her, again and again throughout her career. She has chosen to recorded these 2 concertos as standout as emblems of the extraordinary theatricality of Mozart's mature concertos, also highlighting the spirit of dialogue between soloist and orchestra. Each concerto concludes with a final movement cast in variation form, the only 2 examples in Mozart's piano concertos.

"The hope is to be able to highlight some aspect of the work that hasn't been illuminated in that way before," the pianist comments. "The works are so rich and there are so many things you could bring out, there's no way you could bring them all out in a single performance." The original score of K.491 requires the soloist to decipher the composer's intentions and make choices about which notes or even passages to play. "The manuscript shows several iterations that he tried," explains Orli Shaham. "Sometimes it's a leading tone this way, and sometimes it's a leading tone going the other way. Sometimes he crosses it out. It's the only concerto I know where you sometimes will get four lines of what the piano is supposed to be playing."

"Just about everything in this husband-and-wife Mozart concerto collaboration is ideal… the microphone placement captures Orli Shaham’s beautifully regulated Steinway and the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra in perfect balance ... and more importantly, the chamber-like sonic perspective extends to the music making … Like Casadesus, Shaham favors Saint-Säens’ flashy yet effective cadenza for the C minor K. 491’s first movement, but plays it with more authority and force ...The booklet contains an extensive discussion with Shaham, Robertson, and scholar Elaine Sisman that delves into fascinating performance-related issues and historical perspectives. Strongly recommended." (ClassicsToday)

"Embracing the light and dark of Mozart’s Piano Concertos, ...enchants with tempos that mould appreciably this expressive music, giving it time and richness of sound (superbly recorded…). Orli Shaham (sister of Gil) and David Robertson are at-one interpretatively... and the SLS members are stylish and sympathetic confreres. The opening of K453, while poised, is also infectious in its spirit, delightfully detailed… K491… the orchestral introduction finds emotional urgency, Shaham speaks of isolation in her initial appearance; thus an admirable tension is produced, theatre and Innigkeit intertwined, the aural equivalent of a page-turner. The first-movement cadenza is by Saint-Saëns…in the booklet, you will find there an extensive three-way conversation between pianist, conductor and Elaine Sisman – the latter a “bona fide academic authority on Mozart’s music ... [and who] thinks Mozart is really cool...”. He is when performed like this." (Classical Source)

Orli Shaham, piano
St. Louis Symphony Orchestra
David Robertson, conductor

Orli Shaham
A consummate musician recognized for her grace, subtlety and vitality, Orli Shaham has established an impressive international reputation as one of today's most gifted pianists. Hailed by critics on four continents, Ms. Shaham is in demand for her prodigious skills and admired for her interpretations of both standard and modern repertoire. The Chicago Tribune recently referred to her as “a first-rate Mozartean” in a performance with the Chicago Symphony, and London's Guardian said Ms. Shaham's playing was "perfection" during her recent Proms debut with the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

Orli Shaham has performed with the Boston, Cleveland, and Philadelphia Orchestras, the Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit, Houston, St. Louis, San Francisco, Seattle, San Diego and Utah Symphonies, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Filarmonica della Scala, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Stockholm Philharmonic, Bilbao Symphony, Orchestra della Toscana, Orchestre National de Lyon, Taiwan Philharmonic, Sydney Symphony Orchestra and the Malaysian Philharmonic. A frequent guest at summer festivals, she has performed at Tanglewood, Ravinia, Verbier, Mostly Mozart, Aspen, Caramoor, Spoleto, Bravo Vail, Music Academy of the West, Orcas Island, Amelia Island, Peninsula, and Sun Valley music festivals.

Ms. Shaham has given recitals in North America, Europe and Asia at such renowned concert halls as Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, Frankfurt's Alte Oper, and the Herkulessaal in Munich, and has worked with many eminent conductors including Sir Neville Marriner, Sir Roger Norrington, Christopher Hogwood, David Robertson, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Leonard Slatkin, Robert Spano, Gerard Schwarz, and Jacque Lacombe among others.

Highlights of Orli Shaham’s international performance schedule in 2013-2014 include the regional premiere of Stumble to Grace, a piano concerto written for her by the acclaimed American composer Steven Mackey and hailed by critics as a “tour de force,” with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Ms. Shaham also performs Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20 with the Florida Orchestra conducted by Michael Francis as well as Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Winston-Salem Orchestra, Robert Moody conducting, and Beethoven’s 4th Piano Concerto with the Portland Symphony Orchestra in Maine. She will also team up with pianist Igal Kesselman for a performance of Mozart’s Concerto in E flat for Two Pianos with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and conductor Salvador Brotons. Summer performances include the Aspen Music Festival and the Sun Valley Idaho Summer Symphony. In addition, Ms. Shaham celebrates her fifth season as curator and performer in Pacific Symphony’s chamber music series in Costa Mesa, California.

Orli Shaham’s highly acclaimed (Wall Street Journal, New York Magazine, NPR.org) classical concert series for young children, Baby Got Bach, is in its fourth season. The popular series continues in New York City where it is presented by the 92nd Street Y, and has expanded to venues in St. Louis and Aspen. Designed for preschoolers, Baby Got Bach provides hands-on activities with musical instruments, and concepts and concert performances that promote good listening skills.

In 2013, Orli Shaham released a CD Nigunim - Hebrew Melodies (Canary Classics) recorded with her brother, the violinist Gil Shaham. Featured on the recording is a new work by the Israeli-American composer Avner Dorman commissioned by the Shahams and the 92nd Street Y in New York. In 2013-14, Ms. Shaham releases two new recordings: one featuring the world premiere recording of Steve Mackey’s Stumble to Grace with the Los Angeles Philharmonic conducted by David Robertson scheduled for release in March 2014, and a solo disc of music by and inspired by Brahms scheduled for a winter 2014 release. Ms. Shaham’s other recent recordings include the Brahms Horn Trio and Schubert’s lied Auf dem Strom (Albany) featuring the acclaimed principal French hornist of the Cleveland Orchestra, Richard King; and Saint-Saens’ Carnival of the Animals with the pianist Jon Kimura Parker and the San Diego Symphony.

Ms. Shaham's recent highlights include her Proms debut with the BBC Symphony Orchestra at Royal Albert Hall, her debut with the Malaysian Philharmonic led by Claus Petr Flor and a special appearance at New York's Carnegie Hall where she performed Brahms F minor piano sonata and the F-A-E Sonata with violinist Gil Shaham, and the west and east coast premieres of Steve Mackey’s piano concerto Stumble to Grace.

Of her performance of Mozart’s Double Concerto with Emanuel Ax and the Chicago Symphony, the Chicago Tribune wrote “…she showed herself to be a first-rate Mozartean, combining a crisp keyboard touch with an uncommonly nuanced approach to tone and phrase.” Her performance with the Boston Symphony Orchestra was praised by critic Matthew Guerrieri: “Orli Shaham gave a superb account of the solo piano part, with deep color and fine details,” and the Winnipeg Free Press declared Ms. Shaham’s piano skills “almost too good to be true.” Orli Shaham has returned to Australia again and again in recent seasons, where she has performed a wide variety of composers, including Mozart which she conducts from the keyboard.

Driven by a passion to bring classical music to new audiences, Orli Shaham maintains an active parallel career as a respected broadcaster, music writer and lecturer. In 2005, she began collaboration with Classical Public Radio Network as the host of "Dial-a-Musician," a feature she created especially for the radio network. The concept of the program was to enhance listeners' experiences of music and musicians. During the feature she directed listeners' questions about classical music to fellow musicians -by literally dialing them up for the correct answer. Her program hosted over 60 guests including composer John Adams, pianists Emanuel Ax and Yefim Bronfman, Emerson String Quartet violinist Philip Setzer and cellist David Finckel, and sopranos Natalie Dessay and Christine Brewer. Orli Shaham has taught music literature at Columbia University, and contributed articles to Piano Today, Symphony and Playbill magazines and NPR’s Deceptive Cadence blog. Ms. Shaham has served as artist in residence on National Public Radio’s Performance Today.

In addition to Nigunim, their recording of Jewish music, Orli Shaham and her older brother Gil have collaborated on several recordings including a Deutsche Grammophon recording entitled Dvorák for Two, and an all-Prokofiev disc The Prokofiev Album on Canary Classics, ("As fine a recording of the violin and piano music of Prokofiev as has ever been made by one of the finest violinist and pianist teams of the last ten years." Barnes&Noble.com). Their recent recording, Mozart in Paris, features Mozart Violin Sonatas, and is available on CD from Canary Classics. When performing this recorded repertoire live, critics have praised the glorious "sibling revelry" (The Plain Dealer)--musical chemistry, nourished by shared family history and a comfortable give-and-take.

Orli Shaham was recognized early for her prodigious talents. She received her first scholarship for musical study from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation at age five to study with Luisa Yoffe at the Rubin Academy of Music in Jerusalem. By age seven, she traveled to New York with her family to begin study with Nancy Stessin, and became a scholarship student of Herbert Stessin at The Juilliard School a year later. She has also won the Gilmore Young Artist Award and the Avery Fisher Career Grant, two prestigious prizes given to further the development of outstanding talent. In addition to her musical education, Orli Shaham holds a degree in history from Columbia University. Orli Shaham lives in New York and St. Louis with her husband, conductor David Robertson, stepsons Peter and Jonathan, and twins Nathan and Alex.

David Robertson
conductor, artist, thinker, and American musical visionary—occupies some of the most prominent platforms on the international music scene. A highly sought-after podium figure in the world of opera, orchestral music, and new music, Robertson is celebrated worldwide as a champion of contemporary composers, an ingenious and adventurous programmer, and a masterful communicator whose passionate advocacy for the art form is widely recognized.

Robertson has served in numerous artistic leadership positions, such as Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and a transformative 13-year tenure as Music Director of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, where he solidified its status as among the nation’s most enduring and innovative ensembles, established fruitful relationships with a spectrum of artists, and garnered a 2014 Grammy Award for the Nonesuch release of John Adams’ City Noir. Earlier artistic leadership positions include at the Orchestre National de Lyon; as a protégé of Pierre Boulez, the Ensemble InterContemporain; as Principal Guest at the BBC Symphony Orchestra; and as a Perspectives Artist at Carnegie Hall, where he has conducted numerous orchestras. He appears regularly with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic, Bayerischer Rundfunk, and other major European orchestras and festivals.

Robertson continues a longstanding and rich collaboration with the New York Philharmonic and conducts numerous North American orchestras, including the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati and Dallas Symphony Orchestras, and the Juilliard Orchestra, where he serves as Director of Conducting Studies, Distinguished Visiting Professor. Robertson continues to build upon his deep conducting relationship with The Metropolitan Opera, including James Robinson’s premier production of Porgy and Bess (2019), and the premier of Phelim McDermott’s celebrated production of Così fan tutte (2018).

Since his 1996 Met Opera debut, The Makropulos Case, he has conducted a breathtaking range of projects, including the Met premiere of John Adams’ The Death of Klinghoffer (2014); the 2016 revival of Janáček’s Jenůfa; and many favorites. Robertson has frequent projects at the world’s most prestigious opera houses, including La Scala, Théâtre du Châtelet, and San Francisco and Santa Fe Operas.

Robertson is the recipient of numerous musical and artistic awards, and in 2010 was made a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the Government of France. He is devoted to supporting young musicians and has worked with students at festivals ranging from Aspen to Tanglewood to Lucerne.

Booklet for Mozart: Piano Concertos No. 17, K.453 & No. 24, K.491