Gavin Engelbrecht
The Northern Echo
July 2016

Franz Xaver Mozart was born just four months before the death of his father, Wolfgang Amadeus. Like his father, he undertook a series of concert tours, but they were only a moderate success. A pianist of similarly precocious talent, he nevertheless wrote just two piano concertos. While they may not be held up as towering masterpieces, they are nonetheless finely-crafted works; conveyed with conviction in a sparkling performance from Howard Shelley. The work is coupled with Clementi’s only surviving essay in the genre, the Piano Concerto in C major, which probably dates from the 1780s. A worthy addition to the discography.