Christie Mozart

It was only a matter of time before William Christie got around to recording Mozart's delightful 1782 singspiel, and the results are very happy indeed. Period instruments are just right for the raucous "Turkish" music Mozart composed for Entführung, and they go very nicely with the light voices Christie has chosen as well. Most successful is the Belmonte of tenor Ian Bostridge, already famous for his lieder singing.

For all the lovely recordings of the Mozart Requiem, KV 626 - and there are many fine ones that run the gamut of 'authoritative/authentic' performances to richly robust and romantic versions that ring the halls with operatic grandeur - this 1995 recording with William Christie conducting Les Arts Florissantes is one that is so richly rewarding to return to for its delicate yet soulful sincerity. The instruments are in keeping with the instruments of Mozart's time, and the choral technique is more straight toned than other more modern choruses. The soloists - Anna Maria Panzarella, soprano, Nathalie Stutzmann, alto, Christoph Pregardien, tenor, and Nathan Berg, bass - are all excellent, both as individuals and in quartet and combinations.

Campra's Idomenee (based on the same story as Mozart's Idomeneo) was first staged in 1712. Campra significantly reworked the score for the 1731 revival, and it is this second version of the opera that is recorded here. The opera follows the traditional tragedie-lyrique pattern having five acts and a prologue. But under Campra's pen (I mean, quill), the formalities of the genre are transformed into a genuine drama. The comparison between the 1712 and 1731 versions of the opera confirms Campra's intention to produce an emotionally realistic drama: the second version eliminated several minor characters and streamlined the plot thus achieving a better dramatic effect.

The artistic director of the ‘Concert Spirituel’ from 1752 to 1762, Mondonville was one of the most fashionable composers in Paris due to his ‘grands motets’. However, it was in the field of chamber music that he was a real innovator. In creating the sonata for harpsichord with violin accompaniment, he paved the way for a form soon to be raised to sublime heights by Mozart and Beethoven. By giving the harpsichord accompaniment to the human voice Mondonville carried the experiments to its utmost limits.

Anyone who enjoys Mozart opera should hear this disc. Yet quite a few people who'd probably love it to death if they listened are going to pass it by. Why? Well, look at the selections - it's not exactly a 'greatest hits' selection in the truly popular sense. Lucio Silla, Il re pastore, Mitridate, Zaïde - hardly front rank Mozart operas in the public consciousness; with Die Entführung we're getting closer - and suddenly you spot track 2, Pamina's gorgeous lament to lost love from The Magic Flute: 'Ach, ich fühl's' - anyone who hears Sandrine Piau singing this famous number will want to experience the rest of the recording no matter what.

Anyone who enjoys Mozart opera should hear this disc. Yet quite a few people who'd probably love it to death if they listened are going to pass it by. Why? Well, look at the selections - it's not exactly a 'greatest hits' selection in the truly popular sense. Lucio Silla, Il re pastore, Mitridate, Zaïde - hardly front rank Mozart operas in the public consciousness; with Die Entführung we're getting closer - and suddenly you spot track 2, Pamina's gorgeous lament to lost love from The Magic Flute: 'Ach, ich fühl's' - anyone who hears Sandrine Piau singing this famous number will want to experience the rest of the recording no matter what.

Tout le monde devrait connaitre certaines oeuvres classiques. Les requiems de Mozart ou de de Saint Sens en font parti, à mes yeux.

Originating by way of an Aix-En-Provence Festival staging, William Christie and his Arts Florissants bring dramatic flair and musical panache to Mozart's great late Singspiel in equal measure. To begin with, there's a dream cast led by the alluring pairing of Hans Peter Blochwitz as Tamino and Rosa Mannion as Pamina. Anton Scharinger makes for an earthy Papageno, Reinhard Hagen is a commanding Sarastro, whilst Natalie Dessay's input as Queen of the Night comes over in both her showpiece arias as steadfast and electrifying. The casting in depth continues: rare is a Magic Flute that can boast singers of the calibre of Willard White and Linda Kitchen in the relatively small roles of Speaker and Papagena. Then, the uniformly warm vocal blend is homogeneously matched, note for note, with the gut strings and less aggressive winds of Les Arts Florissants. Not that there's anything limp or lacklustre about Christie's brisk tempi; whilst sharp editing maintains the theatrical urgency. The melliflously played "magic" flute and exact keyed glockenspiel input for Papageno's bells are further examples of the care which has gone into this state of the art "authentic" interpretation. With a work like The Magic Flute, recorded choices are voluminous. Neville Marriner with his Academy of St Martins-in-the-Fields on Phillips puts in a brave showing, but William Christie maybe wins out in a thorough interpretation which simultaneously celebrates the opera's joy and mystery. –Duncan Hadfield

While Freemasonry's secrecy has always aroused distrust, its enlightened principles and belief in virtue, liberty, fraternity, and equality have attracted large numbers of intellectuals and artists; one of its most famous adherents was Mozart. However, his opera The Magic Flute was not the first to be inspired by its teachings but was preceded in 1749 by Rameau's Zoroastre. Its initial reception was so cool that Rameau and his librettist, Louis de Cahusac (a prominent Mason) undertook extensive revisions. The new version was produced–by coincidence or fate?–in 1756, the year of Mozart's birth, and became a great success.

The eighteenth century is probably the most extraordinary period of transformation Europe has known since antiquity. Political upheavals kept pace with the innumerable inventions and discoveries of the age; every sector of the arts and of intellectual and material life was turned upside down. Between the end of the reign of Louis XIV and the revolution of 1789, music in its turn underwent a radical mutation that struck at the very heart of a well-established musical language. In this domain too, we are all children of the Age of Enlightenment: our conception of music and the way we ‘consume’ it still follows in many respects the agenda set by the eighteenth century. And it is not entirely by chance that harmonia mundi has chosen to offer you in 2011 a survey of this musical revolution which, without claiming to be exhaustive, will enable you to grasp the principal outlines of musical creation between the twilight of the Baroque and the dawn of Romanticism.