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Salieri: Keyboard Concertos in C and B-flat; Sonata in C; March in D. Filippo Pantieri, piano and harpsichord; Ensemble Sezione Aurea. Dynamic. $16.99.

     What a difference an instrument makes! Antonio Salieri’s instrumental music is of much less consequence than the theatrical works on which he focused, but his keyboard creations – composed when he was in his mid-20s – have received renewed attention recently because of their inherent charm and their comparability to some works by C.P.E. and J.C. Bach, and even a few by Mozart. However, because Salieri (1750-1825) wrote these pieces for cembalo or clavicembalo – two words that both refer to the harpsichord – there has been little chance to hear them as the composer intended them to be heard, since today’s performers have inevitably gravitated toward the modern piano. Furthermore, the accompaniment for Salieri’s two piano concertos has tended to come in the form of a chamber orchestra using modern instruments, resulting in a sound world quite different from Salieri’s own.

     These circumstances make the new Dynamic release featuring Filippo Pantieri and the 11-member Ensemble Sezione Aurea – which uses original instruments or careful modern copies, and focuses on historically informed performance practices – especially welcome. And that is despite the fact that Pantieri does not quite go all the way to a cembalo for the concertos or the Sonata in C, instead using a late-18^th-century piano for the concertos and a replica of a 1792 piano for the sonata. Although these pianos have a sound reflective of Salieri’s time, their use is a somewhat odd decision, given the fact that Pantieri knows how to play the harpsichord, and does so for the little March in D that concludes this recording. Nevertheless, this reading of Salieri’s concertos, which treats them as true chamber music, makes a far better case for them – and for the Sonata in C, which is more in the nature of a suite – than have other releases, which have paid less attention to the aural milieu in which Salieri composed.

     Salieri’s B-flat concerto is the larger of the two, and the cooperative rather than competitive nature of its solo-and-ensemble writing comes through especially well in this recording: the ensemble frequently takes a back seat or sits silent so the solo instrument can assert itself, and here that approach emphasizes the collegiality of the music and the comparatively gentle (rather than dominating) sound of the solo keyboard. The well-proportioned first-movement cadenza is a highlight here, as are the sweetness of the second movement and, to an even greater extent, the many pleasantries of the Tempo di Menuetto finale, which is a series of well-contrasted and rhythmically attractive variations that eventually lead to an engagingly scurrying conclusion. The unassuming Concerto in C is less virtuosic than the one in B-flat (which itself is not highly demanding), and its smaller scale is more Classical stylistically and less galant. The gentle second movement flows well, and the bright and pleasant finale is attractive. Pantieri’s careful attention to historically informed performance practice, and his well-managed blending of the sound of the piano (which is far less resonant than modern instruments) with that of Ensemble Sezione Aurea, give the concertos suitable period flavor that makes them more effective – if no more musically consequential – than versions using modern keyboards and larger instrumental groupings.

     Pantieri also handles the Sonata in C attentively and attractively, and presents it at a more-convincing scale than Costantino Catena does on a recent Brilliant Classics CD, using a modern Fazioli piano. Both readings claim to be the world première recording; in fact, Catena’s was released first but recorded second (in September 2024 vs. Pantieri’s in October 2023). More significantly, the performers handle the sonata quite differently, and not only because of their differing instruments: Catena’s version lasts less than nine minutes, while Pantieri’s, which takes all repeats in the score, runs 13½. The sonata is scarcely substantial in any case: all six of its movements are in C, and the overall feeling is of a suite of short, unconnected pieces strung together to be performed by a talented amateur rather than a more-accomplished player. The work is pleasing enough, if insubstantial; and the same is true of the March in D, which definitely gets its first recording on Pantieri’s disc and serves as a 90-second encore. Here Pantieri really does use a cembalo, and while the little march is scarcely challenging to play or hear, it does have a nicely upbeat quality accentuated by the choice of instrument – raising anew the question of why Pantieri chose not to use a harpsichord for the other works on the CD. In any case, the totality of this disc is very enjoyable indeed, giving Salieri his due in ways that other recorded versions of these works do not – and confirming that while instrumental music was scarcely Salieri’s forte, it is much more convincing on a fortepiano than on a modern concert grand.