Gidon Kremer Mozart

For collectors of recordings by Latvian violinist Gidon Kremer, this 10-disc set called Historical Russian Archives will be just the thing to fill the stray gaps in his discography. Recorded between 1967 and 1992, the sound here ranges from the acceptable to the outstanding, and featuring works from Bach's Chaconne to Salmanov's Second Violin Sonata, the repertoire ranges from the extremely well known to the almost unknown…

Filmed in Vienna's Grosser Musikvereinssaal in the early 1980s, this fabled rendering of Mozart's complete violin concertos appears on DVD for the first time. Premier violinist Gidon Kremer unites with Nikolaus Harnoncourt and the Wiener Philharmoniker in a tribute to the musical genius Harnoncourt deems "the most Romantic composer of all".

One of the great violinists of our day, Gidon Kremer is someone I always want to hear. I am not so sure about his chamber orchestra however. One might say he leads and they follow. There is punctuality and alertness, and the set is not without moments when you feel everyone is listening to each other and involved in an integrated endeavour. Yet moments they are, unsustained, and the all-purpose vigour predominating in the outer movements, contrasted with a vaguely songful quality in the middle ones, leaves me longing for more subtlety and range.

The trio on this dics is chamber music performance at its highest level of enjoyment. Listening to the CD, you get an impression of three great friends having a most delightful conversation, elegant and graceful. The recorded sound is first rate. You hear all the details of instruments being played and also the acoustic features of the room in which they performed. It is interesting to compare this one with a Mozart trio played by Dumay, Wang and Pires, which features more modern recorded sound and the same delight in the musicans playing the music together. The duos on this CD are equally enjoyable. I particularly like the nostalgically nasal yet lush tone of the viola Kashkashian played.

This piece, a divertimento for string trio (violin, viola, and cello, was composed in 1788, the same year as the E-flat, G-minor, and Jupiter symphonies and the little C-major piano sonata, four of Mozart's best-known and greatest pieces. This divertimento is relatively little-known, yet it is the equal of those far-better-known pieces. Mozart was at the absolute height of his powers as a composer.

The trio on this dics is chamber music performance at its highest level of enjoyment. Listening to the CD, you get an impression of three great friends having a most delightful conversation, elegant and graceful. The recorded sound is first rate. You hear all the details of instruments being played and also the acoustic features of the room in which they performed.

Gidon Kremer's technical brilliance, inward but passionate playing, and commitment to both new works and new interpretations of old works have made him one of the most respected violinists in the world today.

Gidon Kremer … his tone colour changing in chameleon fashion to match mood and style. He is wispy and wiry in the spare, fugal opening, but as the music blossoms into Straussian warmth, he plays with a creamy, ripe sweetness that could grace an old Hollywood weepy. Yet there is always clarity in the playing, a feeling for the contours of the music and where they are leading. –Tim Homfray, The Strad, about Kremer s Bartók Violin Concerto

Though Mozart claimed to dislike the flute, he wrote for it with skill and these quartets, written between 1777 and 1787, are not pot-boilers – pace the late Hans Keller, who wrote that they “show Mozart’s hate for the instrument”, but didn’t bother to explain how. These players, two from the Hagen Quartet, are big names, Gidon Kremer’s not least, and play well as an ensemble, the excellent flautist performing with authority but not overbearingly. Indeed, they give the music love, which entirely redeems some inevitable conventionalities, as for example in the C major with its rather obvious melody and harmony – even Mozart didn’t write a towering masterpiece every day.