Robert Kwiatkowski & Polish Baltic Philharmonic Orchestra - Mozart: Violin Concertos Nos. 1-3 (2024)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart has been one of the pillars of music, its alpha and omega for many a generation of artists. His works reflect what is noble in humankind and testify to his personal genius.

I have long been Mozart’s faithful fan and propagator of his music, which I have performed at countless concerts in Poland and abroad. The present CD recording of his violin concertos is the crowning point of my efforts in this field to date.

The cadenzas recorded here are my own. I was persuaded to write them (also for the other violin concertos by Mozart, as well as those by Joseph Haydn and Ludwig van Beethoven) by the desire to fill a gap that I believe has emerged in this area. The cadenzas available in print, whether as collections in separate volumes or as an element imposed on performers by the editors of individual concertos, are – in my view – overly Romantic, frequently packed full of formidable technical problems, and, most importantly, disproportionately ‘heavy’ in their expression in relation to the concertos themselves.

The music of the Classical period is particularly dear to me in terms of both style and aesthetics. Every time I was preparing to play Mozart’s violin concertos, I faced the difficult task of choosing an appropriate cadenza from among those available, none of which would really suit my preferences. I therefore made up my mind to compose them myself. My priorities in writing these cadenzas were as follows: a cadenza must not start with the main theme (as Mozart was wont to do in cadenzas for his piano concertos); it should be relatively concise, and represent a wide palette of frequently changing moods (which is how I understand the music of that era); it should apply technical and bowing solutions that were known and used at that time; most importantly, it must be comprehensively based on the melodic and rhythmic material of the individual movements of the given concerto.

Tracklist
01. Violin Concerto No. 1 in B-Flat Major, K. 207: I. Allegro moderato
02. Violin Concerto No. 1 in B-Flat Major, K. 207: II. Adagio
03. Violin Concerto No. 1 in B-Flat Major, K. 207: III. Presto
04. Violin Concerto No. 2 in D Major, K. 211: I. Allegro moderato
05. Violin Concerto No. 2 in D Major, K. 211: II. Andante
06. Violin Concerto No. 2 in D Major, K. 211: III. Rondeau. Allegro
07. Violin Concerto No. 3 in G Major, K. 216: I. Allegro
08. Violin Concerto No. 3 in G Major, K. 216: II. Adagio
09. Violin Concerto No. 3 in G Major, K. 216: III. Rondeau. Allegro