GRAMOPHONE:
This disc of keyboard music for four hands has a claim to our attention beyond the mere excellence of the playing. Goldstone and Clemmow draw on their own reflections and those of others for their programme, the indefatigable Goldstone offering his realisation of an abandoned Sonata in B flat major for two pianos, a substantial 21–minute work and an enterprise that occupied him intermittently over eight years. It’s well worth hearing and provides a much–needed companion for the great K. 448, Mozart’s only completed work for two pianos, which concludes the disc in effusive high spirits. Goldstone also contributes a two-piano version of the Adagio and Rondo for glass harmonica (he and his wife drawing magical musical box sounds from their two grands). The two other works are Busoni’s faithful 1923 arrangement of the Overture to The Magic Flute, and the Sonata in G, K283, one of four Mozart sonatas to which Grieg added amusing but stylistically anachronistic and ultimately redundant second piano parts. Lovely disc, complemented by Goldstone’s notes.
Jeremy Nicholas

INTERNATIONAL PIANO:
The one Mozart original here is the famous K448 D major Sonata, played by husband-and-wife team Goldstone and Clemmow with such vitality and rich humanity that I’d happily part with my money for those 24 minutes of sublime genius. Yet the revelations don’t end there. Opening the programme is Busoni’s exuberant two-piano transcription of the Magic Flute Overture, whose stereophonic interplay becomes at times like experiencing a game of musical ping-pong, especially when listened to on headphones. Then there’s the delightful K283 G major Sonata with an additional piano part by Grieg, who,as Goldstone points out in his exemplary booklet note, really lets his hair down with the finale’s second theme by adding a Hardanger-style bass. No less effective is Goldstone’s two-piano transcription of the extraordinary K617 Adagio and Rondo, although the prize item is his stunning realisation of fragments for a B flat Sonata which he has lovingly expanded from around three and a half minutes of music to a full scale work in three movements, The result is a tour de force that is no mere academic reconstruction but a living, breathing work of which even the master would surely have been proud.
Julian Haylock

AMERICAN RECORD GUIDE:
This wonderful release is titled “Mozart on Reflection” and contains four works where Mozart's music is heard reflected off – or perhaps refracted through - other people, plus that cornerstone of the two-piano repertoire, the D major Sonata, K 448. Busoni's two-piano arrangement of The Magic Flute Overture is a masterpiece and given a fitting performance. Goldstone and Clemmow match the ensemble and brilliance of the Gilels and Zak rendition of the same work.

Anthony Goldstone shows us that his compositional and arrangement skills are the equal to his pianistic ones. He has arranged Mozart's Adagio and Rondo, K. 617, for two pianos from its original instrumentation of glass harmonica, flute, oboe, viola and cello. He also has realised a complete two-piano sonata (in B flat) from sketches by Mozart. No less an authority than HC Robbins Landon has called it “very cleverly done”. The disc also includes a solo piano sonata (5 in G) with a second piano part by Grieg.

The greatest and best known work here is the Two-Piano Sonata in D. I never tire of it, and the performance can only be described as sparkling. Excellent sound and interesting booklet notes round off a very enjoyable release.
Harrington

CLASSICALNET:
This well recorded disc brings to the fore some unusual works by Mozart, realized and completed by other composers including Anthony Goldstone himself. The sprightly 'Magic Flute' overture comes alive in this spirited version for two pianos. What follows is a rarity in the shape of the Piano Sonata in B flat major, completed from fragments but it is a truly intriguing find and again it comes alive quite magically.

The Sonata in G major was transcribed for two instruments by no less than Edvard Grieg himself and it receives a sparkling performance by Goldstone and Clemmow in another revealing find. The Adagio and Rondo originally for glass harmonica but transcribed for piano duo is also winningly done as is the concluding Sonata in D.

Divine Art deserve praise for venturing into this two piano repertoire which is reaping significant results for the label in this neglected field. Copious notes by Anthony Goldstone set the seal on a most stimulating release.
Gerald Fenech

KLASSISK MUSIKKMAGASIN (NORWAY):
The fall-out from the Mozart year continues, with this CD neatly linking it with the Grieg celebrations of this year: it contains one of the four piano sonatas to which Grieg added a second piano part. It’s a delightful experiment, too: Grieg didn’t simply flesh out the harmonies but has the second piano answering phrases in the first part, decorating them, commenting on them to reveal aspects of the music that might otherwise escape the ear – rather as Mozart does himself in the genuine two-piano sonata also recorded here.

Grieg effectively gives us a new Mozart work – and Anthony Goldstone (who with his wife Caroline Clemmow makes up the duo Goldstone and Clemmow) definitely does that with his realisation of the Sonata for Two Pianos in B flat major, somehow conjuring 21 minutes of absolutely convincing Mozart from a handful of fragments that, played continuously, would last only three-and-a-half minutes. This is a major addition to the repertoire. The performances are both lovingly attentive to detail and fizz with energy, and the recorded sound is as natural as the morning sun.
Martin Anderson

INTERNATIONAL RECORD REVIEW:
The programme assembled for this recital by Anthony Goldstone and Caroline Clemmow includes Mozart’s solitary completed Sonata for Two Pianos, a bold attempt by Goldstone to form a second complete sonata from materials abandoned by Mozart, and three pieces revised for two pianos: the Overture to The Magic Flute as arranged (once or twice I thought ‘deranged’) by Busoni, the G major Sonata for solo piano, K283/K189h, with second keyboard part added by Grieg, and the extraordinary C minor Adagio and Rondo, written during what was to prove Mozart’s last summer, and scored for the surely unique combination of armonica, flute, oboe, viola and cello. Anyone who has experienced the aethereal timbres of the armonica can hardly help feeling disappointed by even such a sensitively played interpretation on two pianos; the magic of the musical glasses lives on in the mind of anyone who has heard it (even if as played recently by a young Russian musician in a square in Venice, with CDs for sale on the spot!). Set against two grand pianos, the well-loved old versions o K.617 by Bruno Hoffmann with Mozart’s original scoring are as poetry compared with prose.

As their recitals and earlier recordings have made clear, Goldstone and Clemmow are a talented duo, able to immerse themselves both in their own lines and in those of their partner. The choices of tempo, dynamic contrast and phrasing carry quiet conviction, though in places their ensemble is less than ideally precise in over-rapid passage-work (as in the first movement of K448), deftly as they in general anticipate and echo each other. The instruments used are not identified in the booklet; they balance each other well.

Goldstone’s note, ‘Mozart on Reflection’, is an interesting and witty introductory essay, but it’s all too coy about the music he has taken as his starting point for the Sonata for Two Pianos in B flat, which he has realized from Mozart sketches that probably date form early 1782, a few months after the completion of the D major Sonata, K448. The opening movement of the newly constructed piece is based on the Grave and Presto, Köchel Appendix 42 (375b), which as left by Mozart consist of 8 and 43 bars respectively; for its finale, Goldstone takes as his starting-point the 16-bar opening of Appendix 43 (375c) and builds from it an extended and structurally quite sound movement. The source of the gently contemplative Larghetto, a perfectly satisfactory middle movement to the new/old work, is the 35-bar-long exposition that Maximilian Stadler was the first to bring to a performable whole at the request of Constanze Mozart, along with a completion of K375c.

This is a valuable release, with fine recorded quality except for a rather narrow perspective, and it should certainly appeal to loves of later arrangements, and especially anyone wanting to get to grips with the fascinating sketched two-piano movements on which, as so often, Mozart gave up – not because of their inferiority or intractability, but usually owing to the pressure to finish commissioned works, surely with the intention to return to then when time and opportunity permitted.
Peter Branscombe

STIRLING NEWS and other UK Regionals:
The latest Divine Art offering from the husband and wife team of Anthony Goldstone and Caroline Clemmow features arrangements for two pianos of some of the most attractive pieces in the Mozart repertoire. The acclaimed keyboard duo unveil a couple of world premiere recordings in the process, as the tackle the composer’s “Adagio and Rondo in C minor/major, K617” and “Sonata in B flat major for two pianos” alongside a sparkling rendition of the overture from “the Magic Flute”.
Kevin Bryan