Alon Goldstein and the Fine Arts Quartet record Mozart Concertos Nos. 18 & 22
July 26, 2024
Pianist Alon Goldstein and the Fine Arts Quartet, with bassist Avery Cardoza, have just recorded rare 19th-century chamber versions of Mozart’s Piano Concertos Nos. 18 & 22, their fifth album in the series following Naxos’s releases of Nos. 20/21, 23/24, 9/17, & 19/25. Produced by multiple GRAMMY Award winners David Frost and Steven Epstein, the disc is scheduled for release in 2025.
Alon Goldstein is one of the most original and sensitive pianists of his generation, admired for his musical intelligence and dynamic personality.
The internationally renowned Fine Arts Quartet (violinists Ralph Evans & Efim Boico, violist Gil Sharon, cellist Niklas Schmidt), was founded in Chicago in 1946. This year, the quartet celebrates its 78th anniversary (& Ralph Evans’s 42nd) and continues to live up to its reputation as “one of the gold-plated names in chamber music.” (Washington Post).
Naxos is delighted to have been associated with the quartet since 2006, when the ensemble made its first recording for the label, the three string quartets of Robert Schumann, which received the American Record Guide’s ‘Critic’s Choice’ award and was described as ‘one of the very finest chamber music recordings of the year.’ From that auspicious beginning, a happy association between artists and label has continued to produce a steady stream of acclaimed performances of eclectic chamber works, among them, recent releases of superb little known early works by Beethoven, Enescu, and Dvořák. The current project, the quartet’s 22nd production for the Naxos label, features chamber transcriptions of two of Mozart’s most magnificent piano concertos, K.456 and K.482, with the orchestra parts arranged for string quartet plus bass by the distinguished 19th-century German composer and conductor Ignaz Lachner. The disc will be released in 2025.
The recording sessions took place July 16–17, 2024 at the Concert Hall of the Dorothy Young Center for the Arts at Drew University, New Jersey, USA.