Superb Mozart from Fellner

Till Fellner made his superb debut at the DFP with Mozart's florid Piano Concerto No 22 in E flat K 482. Since the DFP Hall opened for concerts, we've rarely heard many Mozart Piano Concertos. Even more rarely seen are superb performances of any Mozart Piano Concerto. The conductor and MPO music director Claus Peter Flor had a mixed night - directing the Mozart with a sure hand and accompanying Fellner sensitively and with fine balance with the orchestra. Fellner's touch was steady and sure, with lovely tone and phrasing - typical of an Austrian who studied under Alfred Brendel and was also a winner of the 1993 Clara Haskil (yet another famous Mozartian) piano competition. The audience loved Fellner's performance and he gave them an encore in form of a Liszt piece. In the second half, Flor gave one of his worst ever performances in the DFP Hall. The Mahler Symphony No 1 which is about nature had one of the most horrible and mannered interpretations I have heard, with awry balances (with an extra loud first trumpet part) and very poor tempo choices (too fast at times like in the fugato passage in the last movement). In short, I hated this performance and it was not typical of his previous good work with the MPO.