Performers
Daniel Barenboim
The Berlin Philharmonic

Daniel Barenboim Buenos Aires-born child prodigy and world-famous, if sometimes controversial conductor tends to be known these days for commanding the world's orchestras or leading his own admirable experiment in race relations, the East-Western Divan Orchestra, so it is refreshing to see him here returning to his roots. It was on the piano that he gave his first recital aged five, and with which he took the classical world by storm in his teens, so it is perhaps fitting that here he plays the work of another musician whose gift was in evidence from the outset; Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Here, Barenboim performs the Piano Concerto No 20 K466 in D minor, written in 1785 when Mozart was 29. Unlike many of his earlier piano concertos, No 20 is rather more expressive and sophisticated, and the menacing opening of the first movement in particular seems to echo the illicit world of Don Giovanni, which was written around two years later.