Orchestra da Camera di Mantova/Angela Hewitt (piano) Hyperion CDA 67840****

Canadian pianist Angela Hewitt is beginning a new journey, this one through Mozart’s piano concertos. The first instalment offers the young composer’s first three original concertos, K238 in B flat, K246 in C, and, in a big stylistic leap forward, K271 in E flat. Hewitt is a spry Mozartian, and she infuses the players of the Orchestra da Camera di Mantova with lively spirit to match. Her playing is effortlessly nimble, and although she sometimes evokes the formal manoeuvres of a strutting demonstration of minutely calculated dressage, her phrasing is actually finely balanced in ways that preserve the music from the threat of sounding like patter. And the sense of give-and-take between soloist and orchestra is first- rate. See url.ie/4qdb