Mozart Box

Sir András Schiff born 21 December 1953 is a Hungarian-born British classical pianist and conductor, who has received numerous major awards and honors, including the Grammy Award, Gramophone Award, Mozart Medal, and Royal Academy of Music Bach Prize, and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in her 2014 Birthday Honours for services to music.

We bundled the eight Mozart cds that Rachel Podger and Gary Cooper recorded over the last ten years into an atrractive box, with an informative note from producer Jonathan Freeman-Attwoord. The duo partnership Gary Cooper and Rachel Podger has taken them worldwide. These recordings of Mozarts Complete Sonatas for Keyboard & Violin have received countless awards and accolades, including multiple Diapason dOr awards and Gramophone Editors Choices, and hailed as benchmark recordings.

Every major conductor, and most not-so-major ones, comes around to recording Eine kleine Nachtmusik, but not so many do it as well as George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra strings. And let’s face it, you won’t find a period-instrument ensemble that plays with anything like this level of polish. The fact is, Szell’s conception of Mozart was not terribly far from “period” sensibilities: restrained use of vibrato, incisive rhythms, crisp ensemble, lively tempos, but also a welcome degree of warmth to the sound and of course incredible ensemble discipline and some of the best players on the planet. And he had real period instruments, meaning performers who owned top quality old violins and bows, not inferior modern reproductions of them. The result is as lovely a performance of Mozart’s perennially delicious Serenade as we are ever likely to hear.

The Karajan Official Remastered Edition comprises 101 CDs across 13 box sets containing official remasterings of the finest recordings the Austrian conductor made for EMI between 1946 and 1984, and which are now a jewel of the Warner Classics catalogue.
For many, Herbert von Karajan (1908-1989) – hailed early in his career as ‘Das Wunder Karajan’ (The Karajan Miracle) and known in the early 1960s as ‘the music director of Europe’ – remains the ultimate embodiment of the maestro.

This reissue box collects the entire cycle of Mozart keyboard sonatas, plus single-movement works, recorded by Austrian pianist Paul Badura-Skoda on a 1790 Schantz fortepiano that he himself owns. The six CDs included were originally recorded between 1978 and 1990 for a group of related French labels; the budget-price reissue on Naïve is a bit atypical for that label, which has specialized in innovative and lavishly designed full-priced releases. Online retail presentations may not make clear that they are fortepiano recordings, recordings made on a keyboard instrument probably very much like one Mozart would have played himself.

The box set Great Piano Concertos has been produced to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Naxos and draws on their extensive catalogue of concerto recordings. The recording quality varies from the older 1980’s recordings but there are some good things to enjoy in the 10 CD set particularly Idil Biret playing the two Chopin piano concerts with the Slovak State Philharmonic under Rubert Stankovsky. The two Liszt concertos with Eldar Nebolsin and the RLPO under Petrenko are also very enjoyable as is Jenő Jando playing the Grieg and Schumann concertos with the Budapest Symphony under András Ligeti.

The word ‘symphony’ is used to describe an extended orchestral composition in Western classical music. By the eighteenth century the Italianate opera sinfonia - musical interludes between operas or concertos - had assumed the structure of three contrasting movements, and it is this form that is often considered as the direct forerunner of the orchestral symphony. With the rise of established professional orchestras, the symphony assumed a more prominent place in concert life between 1790 and 1820 until it eventually came to be regarded by many as the yardstick by which one would measure a composer’s achievement.

Conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler already enjoyed a worldwide legendary standing during his lifetime he was considered the German conductor and performances were greeted with rapturous applause. Today, more than 50 years after his death, Wilhelm Furtwängler is still an icon and his work has become an integral part of the music scene.

Greatest Ever Classical Gold is a wide-ranging collection of classical favorites, drawn from the best-loved concertos, orchestral music, chamber works, and keyboard pieces. The selections come from the Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and Modern eras, and the greatest composers in history are represented, among them Bach, Vivaldi, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Debussy, and many others. Newcomers to classical music will likely recognize most of the pieces immediately, and the few that are unfamiliar to them are instantly accessible and highly memorable.

This 14-CD set is really very complete (a few absences are mentioned below). Besides the solo fortepiano works, it features works for piano four-hands, two pianos, even works for organ and the adagio for glass harmonica KV 617a, though these works are performed on the fortepiano. Frankly, I can't bear listening to the glass harmonica, but I prefer the organ works played on organ and the CD with Mozart's organ works I recommend is Mozart - L'oeuvre pour orgue, Olivier Vernet, Cédric Meckler, Ligia Digital. Furthermore, this box presents some never before recorded works comprising recent authentications of Mozart's authorship; doubtful and spurious works; fragments. I name these works below.