Mozart Bernhard Forck

The Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin launches a series of Mozart symphonies to appear on Pentatone, starting with the composer’s “Paris” and “Haffner” symphonies. On this first album, the works are coupled with his enchanting Oboe Concerto – performed by the ensemble’s first oboeist Xenia Löffler – and the bold overture to Die Entführung aus dem Serail in Mozart’s own woodwind arrangement. Taken together, these pieces demon-strate the rich palette and expressive power of Mozart’s music in the period between 1777 and 1783, during which he finally managed to spread his wings and leave his hometown of Salzburg.

Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin returns to Pentatone together with soprano Christina Landshamer, presenting La Passione, a collection of dazzling concert arias on love, longing and loss by Mozart, Beethoven and Haydn, paired with the latter’s “La Passione” Symphony. Ranging from pastoral simplicity to exuberant outrage, the programme offers some of the finest vocal writing around 1800, including some of Beethoven’s rare and little-known excursions to Italian bravura opera, as well as one of the most dramatic and expressive symphonies of the eighteenth-century.

The Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin continues its PENTATONE Mozart series with the composer’s 29th and 33rd symphonies. These works are coupled with his ravishingly beautiful Clarinet Concerto, performed by Ernst Schlader in the original edition for basset clarinet. Schlader, a specialist in historical instruments, has written an essay on the basset clarinet for the album booklet that includes a rare historical image showing the original shape of the instrument used in the years after the concerto’s premiere. The first release of this series was longlisted for the Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik.

The award-winning Academy for Old Music Berlin celebrates its 40th anniversary in 2022 with "Paul Wranitzky: Symphonies". The Süddeutsche Zeitung praises it as "one of the very great ensembles of its kind". Since its founding in 1982, the ensemble has been one of the world's leading chamber orchestras for historical music and proves its versatility again and again with exciting concert projects and musical exploration.

Cleverly paired with two symphonies by C.P.E. Bach – written in 1755/56 and 1775/76 respectively – Beethoven’s first two contributions to the symphonic genre reveal the bubbling creativity of a thirty-year-old composer determined to go even further in the renewal of the genre than another, very recent reference, Mozart’s ‘Jupiter’. So much is clear from the very first chord of his Symphony no.1! Relive this decisive moment in the company of the musicians of the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, under the guidance of their Konzertmeister Bernhard Forck.

The Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin and soprano Christina Landshamer present a Telemann monography, consisting of his cantata Ino and instrumental works composed in the same period. Despite, or perhaps actually thanks to, Telemann’s use of just one singer, Ino is highly dramatic, depicting a desperate woman trying to save herself and her son from her husband turned mad, eventually throwing herself off a cliff and then transformed into a goddess. Telemann composed it two years before his death, and the score is exceptionally rich and colourful. The cantata is combined with his Overture in D Major, Divertimento in E-flat Major and Sinfonia melodica, each underlining the exceptional liveliness of this composer well into the ninth decade of his prolific life.

The award-winning Academy for Old Music Berlin celebrates its 40th anniversary in 2022 with "Paul Wranitzky: Symphonies". The Süddeutsche Zeitung praises it as "one of the very great ensembles of its kind". Since its founding in 1982, the ensemble has been one of the world's leading chamber orchestras for historical music and proves its versatility again and again with exciting concert projects and musical exploration.

Ein Rückblick auf zehn Jahre Cecilia Bartoli: Die Arie "Non piú mesto" aus der 1992 entstandenen Gesamtaufnahme von Rossinis La Cenerentola ist das älteste Tondokument dieser Anthologie, und mancher, der wie der Rezensent diese Cenerentola damals erworben hat, wird sich gut erinnern an die unbeschreiblich elektrisierende Wirkung, die die junge Italienerin mit ihrem vollblütigen Stimmmaterial, ihrem Temperament und ihrer faszinierenden Virtuosität auf ihn ausübte. Das Besondere: Die Geschwindigkeit der rasend schnellen Koloraturen geht niemals zu Lasten des Ausdrucks oder der Intensität.