Leopold Mozart Serenad

A new GENUIN album featuring the Leopold Mozart Quartet is dedicated to the string quartet works of composer Heinz Winbeck, who died in 2019. The Augsburg ensemble, made of four musicians who are active throughout Germany, is known for its high artistic quality, demanding programming, and enormous versatility. Winbeck's three string quartets were written in a period of only five years, between 1979 and 1984, and are the expression of a mature composer at the height of his powers. An unconditional will characterizes Winbeck's music to expressivity and is particularly evident in the interpretation by the Leopold Mozart Quartet: Expansive lines, the use of sparse material, and the search for extreme states – gripping, new chamber music!

Leopold Mozart’s reputation has suffered more than that of most of his professional contemporaries, due in no small measure to the fame of his peerless son and to much spiteful and ill-informed criticism over the past 200 years. Yet he was an acute and sardonic observer of men and morals, a superlative critic and teacher and, as this recording shows, a fine composer whose works circulated well beyond the confines of Salzburg and made the name Mozart famous before it became immortal.

The best-selling Contemporaries of Mozart series is one of Chandos’ longest-running recording projects and we are delighted to add a selection of symphonies by the Salzburg composer Leopold Mozart to the collection. Conducted by Matthias Bamert and the London Mozart Players, the broad range of Leopold’s symphonic style is on clear display in the charming symphonies recorded here. All the works are recorded for the first time.

Wann haben Sie schon einmal in einem Konzert Musik von Leopold, Wolfgang Amadeus und Franz Xaver Mozart gehört? Besonders Werke von Franz Xaver – Wolfgang Amadeus’ jüngstem Sohn – sind nahezu in Vergessenheit geraten. Den diffusen Anforderungen, die sich mit dem idealisierten Bild seines Vaters verbanden, konnte er nicht gerecht werden, und mit zunehmendem Alter dürfte er immer mehr darunter gelitten haben, den gleichen Beruf wie sein Vater ergriffen zu haben. Spannend ist sein Klavierquartett in g-Moll op. 1, besonders in der Gegenüberstellung mit dem seines Vaters.

This album attempt to show how Leopold Mozart could have influenced his well-known son Wolfgang Amadeus by placing the most famous works of Leopold Mozart against the early works of Wolfgang Amadeus. These works are performed by the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra led by Ton Koopman, and Tini Mathot on pianoforte. One side note, while Die Bauernhochzeit and Cassatio ex ("toy symphony") are considered to be works by Leopold Mozart by the creators of this album, others argue the "toy symphony" must have been composed by Joseph Haydn or Edmund Angerer. There is little consensus within the musicological debate.

Mozart’s horn concertos are so well-known that for many listeners the sound of the horn and Mozart are virtually synonymous. Mozart was not the first composer to write solo concertos for the horn, however, and works from earlier on in the eighteenth century give a quite different perspective on the instrument. With this disc soloist Alec Frank-Gemmill provides insights into some of these early horn concertos, by composers ranging from Telemann to Haydn, by way of Mozart’s own father, Leopold.

Mozart only wrote four concertos for horns, and Dale Clevenger on trumpet delivers a powerful performance with the Budapest Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra on this bargain-priced Sony release. Unlike the majority of the Sony Classics line reissues, Mozart's Horn Concertos are DDD (even though the sinfonia by his father that's been tacked onto the end of the cd is ADD).

His first classical album having been released simultaneously with his second jazz album, Think of One, the 21-year-old Wynton Marsalis found himself in the position of being the most celebrated purveyor of both the classical and jazz repertoire since Benny Goodman. His debut takes him to the core of the small solo trumpet concerto repertoire with three pieces from the classical period by Haydn, Hummel, and Leopold Mozart, and thus, directly into competition with more experienced, full-time classical trumpeters. Technically, there is nothing wanting in Marsalis' playing; he pulls off the fanciest, most difficult figurations with hardly a care. .