Werner Held

Carl Stamitz, son of Mannheim composer Johann Stamitz, toured all over Europe and was a famous figure in the last third of the 18th century, well regarded almost everywhere. The exception was Mozart, who – probably out of jealousy, as annotator Olaf Krone suggested (the notes are in English, German, and French) – wrote that Stamitz and his brother Anton were "miserable note scribblers and players – boozers and whoremongers – which isn't my kind of people."

It is immediately evident from the Overture that the orchestral sound is going to be rich and ponderous, and, although Harnoncourt works wonders in varying the dynamics and getting the rhythms to dance…the effect is more suggestive of those gigantic mid-Victorian Handel events in the Crystal Palace than anything that Mozart, let alone Handel, could have imagined.