Mozart Symphonies Nos 31, 35, 38

Rafael Kubelik recorded more Mozart than Haydn. I suspect that he performed more Haydn in concert. All of these are excellent, as is this #99- with a somewhat reduced orchestra. #99 is one of Haydn's greatest symphonies. It features a long, serious, and beautiful Adagio with a section for winds and great outer movements. Kubelik leads his great orchester energetically, giving due weight long first movement introduction and the sublime second movement.

Sir Colin Davis celebrated his 80th birthday on 25 September 2007 and this set of late Mozart symphonies was released to mark that important event in the career of one of the great Mozart conductors of the past fifty years.
It was during the early 1950s when Davis started conducting Mozart operas with the Chelsea Opera Group that attention was first drawn to his genius as a Mozart conductor. In 1960 he conducted Die Zauberflöte at Glynedebourne (replacing an indisposed Beecham); during his tenure as Music Director at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (he succeeded Solti in 1971) his Mozart performances drew huge critical acclaim.

The Capella Istropolitana consists of leading members of the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra of Bratislava; though their string-tone is thinnish, it is very much in scale with the clarity of a period performance but tonally far sweeter. The recording is outstandingly good, with a far keener sense of presence than in most rival versions and with less reverberation to obscure detail in tuttis.

The multi-award-winning partnership of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Sir Charles Mackerras is reunited in this second collection of Mozart Symphonies featuring Nos. 29, 31 ('Paris'), 32, 35 ('Haffner') & 36 ('Linz'). This much anticipated recording follows on from the astounding success of Mozart: Symphonies 38-41 which resulted in Mackerras and the SCO winning the Critics' Award at the 2009 BRIT Awards and led to Mozart: Symphonies 38-41 being named 'Disc of the Year' at the 2009 BBC Music Magazine Awards.

These distinguished, if not perfect, recordings made in 1984. They should be amongst everyone’s preferred renditions. They are brisk but not tense, dramatic and even playful when need be. Occasionally, but only at rare moments, such as the beginning of the “Prague” Symphony, I would like something a little fiercer. Mostly Marriner is right on, as in the transition between the darkish introduction to the first movement of the Symphony No. 39 and its exuberant main theme.

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.

This Collection of Mozart fetaures some of the leading period-instrument ensembles and spans the oeuvre of Mozart's works. Included excellent readings of the 'Prague' Symphony and the Requiem.

Vous tentiez en vain de vous procurer la version qui couronnait dans notre numéro de septembre la discographie de la Symphonie n° 38 ? Elle est à vous, avec deux autre perles.