K Drama School

If you can tolerate Dirk Vermeulen’s rigidly vibrato-less strings versus winds and brass that play with far more color, expression, and, yes, a smidgen of vibrato, it is worth the effort for pianist Klára Würtz’s incandescent handling of the Mozart K. 271 and K. 467 concertos’ solo parts. She consistently shapes echoed phrases with contrast and character, and creates appropriate vocal-inspired tension in the slow-movement melodies’ wide interval leaps.

The works by the Austrian composer Kurt Schwertsik are characterised by his own particular exploration of tonality, and his sense of musical irony and humour. A pupil of Joseph Marx and Karl Schiske at the Academy of Music in Vienna, he later studied with Karlheinz Stockhausen in Cologne and Darmstadt. Here his works are performed by the BBC Philharmonic under HK Gruber, a close friend of Schwertsik’s and fellow founder of the MOB art & tone ART ensemble and the Third Viennese School.

In 2001, when Gunter Wand was an astonishing 89, he led this live concert from Hamburg with his home orchestra, the North German Radio. Wand was a benign (so far as I know) conservative like Josef Krips, happy if his wrld was circumscribed by Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, and Bruckner, who remained the taples of his repertoire.
A lifelong devotion to Mozart shows through in this genial, quick-moving, sunny reading of the "posthorn" Serenade. The posthorn soloist is fine, the first oboe a bit less so, but everyone's in high spirits. There's not a hint of dullness anywhere, making Wand's one of the best versions outside the period-performance litany. Smiles all around.