Mozart Symphony No. 19

The Academy of St Martin in the Fields (ASMF) is an English chamber orchestra, based in London. John Churchill, then Master of Music at the London church of St Martin-in-the-Fields, and Neville Marriner founded the orchestra as "The Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields", a small, conductorless string group. The ASMF gave its first concert on 13 November 1959, in the church after which it was named. In 1988, the orchestra dropped the hyphens from its full name.

Thanks to its unique sound palette and the standing it acquired with its yearly New Year’s Concert broadcasted worldwide, the Wiener Philharmoniker is one of the most emblematic orchestras of the planet. At the onset of another rich summer season that will see it perform at the Salzburg Festival under the baton of Riccardo Muti, Andris Nelsons or Ingo Metzmacher, let’s enjoy some of their illustrious performances, starting with Mozart. This compilation features figures such as Rafael Kubelík, Karl Böhm, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Riccardo Muti and Nicolai Gedda.

This is the tenth volume in the Dacapo's acclaimed series of the complete symphonies by W.A. Mozart, recorded by the Danish National Chamber Orchestra and their renowned Austro-Hungarian chief conductor Adam Fischer.
Mozart complete! Seven years of work with W.A. Mozart’s symphonies come to completion with this monumental release, containing 45 symphonies, including eight unnumbered youth works.

This set is pure joy. These are period performances, but there's nothing hair-shirt about them. Pinnock caresses the slow movements with great affection, and throughout there's a sense of fun and enjoyment. What's exciting is the sweetness of the period-instrument sound and the suppleness and flexibility The English Concert brings to the music. They play, much of the time, as if it were chamber music, particularly in second subjects – the lyrical passages, that is, where they shape the phrases with a warmth and refinement you hardly expect in orchestral music.

The first 14 of the 16 symphonies chosen span the years 1771, when Mozart was 15, through to 1773, when he produced in the G minor No. 26, his first out-and-out masterpiece among the symphonies. In addition to the regularly numbered works Tate includes the so-called Symphonies Nos. 48 (adapted from the overture to Ascanio in Alba) and 50 (adapted from the overture to Il sogno di Scipione). Then, almost as an appendix to the rest, come two more adaptations from opera overtures, dating from 1775-6, No. 51 (from La finta giardiniera) and No. 52 (from Il re pastore, with an adaptation of an aria inserted).