Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos. 17 & 23

Concerto No. 17 is light on its feet, conveying a graceful innocence that plunges to profundity before bringing us seamlessly back to brightness. Concerto No. 23 embodies Mozart's special capacity for conveying the vast and often terrifying contradictions of human experience in one enveloping, somehow optimistic, embrace.

Ben Kim: I've long been interested in using the modern piano to mimic the unique temperament of the fortepiano, to make the notes not only sing but speak like a human voice, accentuating not only the luxuriant vowel sounds of the modern piano but also the short, staccato consonants created by the fortepiano. Mozart is master of the lyrical, but there are even more layers of dimension to be revealed by adding the percussiveness of the fortepiano, sometimes taking the modern piano off its contemporary pedestal, and weaving the more transparent texture of its historical sibling with the orchestra.