Austrian pianist Till Fellner returned to the States last month for “crisp and stylish” performances of Mozart’s Piano Concerto in E-flat Major, K. 482, in a Chicago Symphony subscription week with Bernard Haitink.
“Fellner is one of today’s very finest Mozart interpreters, for reasons that relate not only to his Austrian birth and Viennese training (Alfred Brendel was one of his teachers). His musicality is such that everything sounded as it should: sparkling runs, purling tone, diamond-edged articulation, clarity of voicing. Above all, he brought to this marvel of a concerto an expressive understanding that ran deep below the music’s pristine surfaces, most notably in the introspective slow movement.” – John von Rhein, Chicago Tribune, April 29, 2016
In advance of the Chicago concerts, Till was featured on WFMT’s Impromptu, performing works by Beethoven and Schumann. The hour-long program can be heard here.
Earlier in April Till played the same Mozart Concerto in London with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, led by Sir Neville Marriner in a concert celebrating his 92nd birthday.
“In the finale, Fellner again showed what a discerning Mozartian he is, the classical proportions never under strain, his right hand dancing brightly over the keys, and in the final short cadenza a twinkle-in-the-eye approach, almost Chopinesque in its brilliance” – Von Alexander Hall, Bachtrack, April 16, 2016
At the Gilmore Festival on May 6 he performed Schumann, Berio, and Beethoven which he repeated the next day in Baltimore in the season’s closing concert of the Shriver Hall Concert Series, stepping in at the last minute in place of Nelson Freire.