Mozart: Christian Blackshaw

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Piano Concertos Nos. 20 & 21
Christian Zacharias, piano / Sinfonie-Orchester des Bayrischen Rundfunks / David Zinman
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 213 MB | Full Artwork: 60 MB | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: EMI # 7243 5 74676 2 9 | Country/Year: Germany 2001, 1989/1992
Genre: Classical | Style: Viennese School

…Zacharias began recording for EMI the following year, and would, by 1997, make over 40 albums for the label, covering a broad range of repertory, including Mozart (complete concertos and sonatas), Beethoven (complete concertos), Scarlatti, Schubert, Schumann, and many others. Despite great success throughout the 1980s and early '90s in his keyboard career, Zacharias decided to take up conducting in 1992. His debut was in Geneva with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande…

Christian Li walks in the footsteps of Mendelssohn, bringing the music from his travels around Europe to life. Recorded with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, we follow Mendelssohn’s own journeys, with pieces written in Leipzig, Düsseldorf, Munich, Venice & London, including music from the composer’s own inspirations and contemporaries: J. S. Bach, Mozart & Schubert.

For the fourth volume in this collection dedicated to Mozart concertos by the younger generation of performers, the Orpheum Foundation and Alpha Classics present the Concertos nos. 23 and 24 (K488 & 491) performed by the British pianist Julian Trevelyan, who was awarded three prizes at the Géza Anda Competition in Zurich in 2021 and, at the age of sixteen, became the youngest-ever prizewinner at the Marguerite Long Competition in Paris in 2015. ‘Mozart’s music is full of life, humour and enjoyment. My life wouldn’t feel fulfilled if I didn’t have his music’, says the young musician, who is accompanied here by one of the most eminent Mozartian maestros, Christian Zacharias, conducting the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra.

The greatest of Mozart's wind serenades and the toughest of Alban Berg's major works might seem an unlikely pairing, but in an interview included with the sleeve notes for this release, Pierre Boulez points up their similarities. Both works are scored for an ensemble of 13 wind instruments (with solo violin and piano as well in the Berg) and both include large-scale variations as one of their movements - and Boulez makes the comparisons plausible enough in these lucid performances. It's rare to hear him conducting Mozart, too, and if the performance is a little brisker and more strait-laced than ideal, the EIC's phrasing is a model of clarity and good taste. It's the performance of the Berg, though, that makes this such an important issue; both soloists, Mitsuko Uchida and Christian Tetzlaff, are perfectly attuned to Boulez's approach - they have given a number of performances of the Chamber Concerto before - and the combination of accuracy and textural clarity with the highly wrought expressiveness that is the essence of Berg's music is perfectly caught.

With his distinctive combination of integrity, unique style, surpassing linguistic expressiveness, deep musical insight and assured artistic instinct paired with his charismatic and captivating personality, Christian Zacharias has made a name for himself not only as one of the world’s leading pianists and conductors, but also as a musical thinker.

The Wurttembergische Philharmonie Reutlingen presents a Mozart program on ARS PRODUKTION with two Swiss guests, conductor Christian Erny and pianist Hans-Jurg Straub, that is full of contrasts: On one hand, Mozart's festive, life-affirming so-called Haffner Symphony K385 and, in stark contrast, the sombre, emotional Piano Concerto in C minor K491.

Considering that Mozart's Divertimento in E-flat is far and away the greatest string trio ever written, and one of the unquestionable monuments of chamber music generally, it doesn't get the attention that it surely deserves from either record labels or collectors. Perhaps the dearth of regularly constituted string trios (as opposed to quartets) has something to do with it, but the fact remains that there is no greater testament to Mozart's genius than this epic, nearly 50-minute-long masterpiece in six movements that contains not a second that fails to rise to the highest level of textural gorgeousness and supreme melodic inspiration. Happily, most performances understand how special the music is, and give it their best effort. This one is no exception. The Zimmerman Trio plays with remarkably accurate intonation and a ravishing tone that's also mindful of the Classical style. Schubert's single-movement trio makes the perfect coupling. It seems to grow right out of the Mozart until the end of the exposition, when Schubert suddenly sails in with some typically arresting harmony.

Were just one example to be given of the richness and diversity of Mozart's achievements, Concertos Nos. 23 & 24 would undoubtedly make excellent candidates. Completed almost simultaneously in Vienna in early 1786, the two concertos contrast starkly and seem to have been written years apart – or by two distinct yet connected minds of equal genius. Even more astonishing is the fact that they were written in parallel with the first masterpiece of the Da Ponte trilogy, The Marriage of Figaro, while sharing with it very few stylistic similarities.

This CD presents three of the most well known and most performed concertos for oboe in the instrument’s repertoire. It is often said that the classical era is full of intrigue and mystery, and the history of music is no exception. However, time hides as much as it enlightens, and the ancient adage “Veritas filia Temporis” (Truth is the daughter of Time) often solves these riddles.