Mozart Symphony No. 19

Mozart died barely 11 months after completing his final piano concerto, No. 27, in January 1791. It’s one of the composer’s most serene concertos, full of wit and beauty, with a piano part that eschews technical difficulty for songlike elegance. Whether, as has been suggested over the years, the piece contains hints of a man resigned to his fate, doesn’t matter. Mozart was at the height of his inventive powers, and the piece is treated here to a performance of lightness and grace by a team of musicians determined never to overstate and risk romanticizing Mozart’s sublime utterings. Even when Mozart veers into minor-key territory, the storm clouds dissipate almost as soon as they gather. Franz Welser-Möst is a master at navigating these mood changes, coaxing exquisite subtleties of phrasing from his Cleveland forces, both stepping aside for and complementing Garrick Ohlsson’s honest playing, itself devoid of histrionics.

Deutsche Grammophon is releasing 16 new e-albums comprising Claudio Abbado’s Complete Recordings on the Yellow Label – the legacy of a legend. Together these digital releases include over 250 hours of first-rate recordings and feature an A-Z of composers. Volume 9 in the series presents a comprehensive set of Abbado’s Mozart interpretations.

Karl Böhm's recording of the Mozart symphonies with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra is among the most respected and beloved sets of this important body of work. Böhm's set was the first complete recording of the symphonies (including several that subsequent scholarship has shown to be written by other composers and misattributed to Mozart) and it remains a substantial achievement because of the conductor's stature as a Mozartian and because of the enthusiastic and refined playing of the Berlin Philharmonic.

Mozart complete! Seven years of work with Mozart’s symphonies come to completion with this monumental release of 45 symphonies, including eight unnumbered youthful works. Strongly influenced by historical performance practice, but with modern instruments and in fantastic sound quality, the Danish National Chamber Orchestra and their Austro-Hungarian chief conductor Adam Fischer make Mozart’s music sound more vital and inventive than ever.