Chick Corea - Sardinia

 

180-gram double LP

Pianist Chick Corea's love of Mozart illuminates a new album!

At the outset of Sardinia, a captivating new album with the Orchestra da Camera Della Sardegna, the late pianist Chick Corea can be heard addressing a concert audience on the Italian island, in 2018.

"I wanted to tell everybody that Mozart wrote 27 piano concertos. This one in C minor is Number 24, and some parts of the concerto will be improvised," he explains. "So: mostly what Mozart wrote, but also improvisation."

If these words were intended as a disclaimer for wary classicists, Corea knew he was also offering a preview of coming attractions. Throughout his illustrious career, he showed an abiding interest in the classical canon, which he approached with the same inquisitive spirit that defined his far-ranging work in jazz. Sardinia, which places the Mozart concerto side by side with George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue," is a testament to that curiosity — and another posthumous grace note from Corea, who died in 2021.

"Rhapsody in Blue," which he identifies in the concert as a piece born of jazz intentions, brings out a piano performance as rangy and discursive as you'd expect, writes reviewer Nate Chinen for WRTI. But the more extraordinary achievement on the album is Corea's interpretation of Mozart, which weighs creative license against a deep consideration of form. The pianism is personally distinctive but also thoughtfully calibrated, revealing a maturity of expression that had only begun to shine through in Corea's earlier engagements with this music.

Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 24, K. 491 completed in 1786, turns out to be an ideal vehicle for him.

Mozart Intro

Mozart Piano Concerto No. 24 In C Minor, K.491: I. Allegro

Mozart Piano Concerto No. 24 In C Minor, K.491: II. Larghetto

Mozart Piano Concerto No. 24 In C Minor, K.491: III. Allegretto

Gershwin Intro (George & Ira Gershwin)

Someone To Watch Over Me (George & Ira Gershwin)

Rhapsody In Blue (George Gershwin)

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