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, he performs Mozart's final Piano Concerto, No 27 in B flat major K595 written after two years of severe financial hardship which had placed him and his relationship with his wife, Constanze under great strain. Among the least intricate or virtuosic of his concertos, it has a mature, refined, some would say autumnal mood of introspection and resignation.