Cinque Venti

In the eighteenth century it was common practice to hear excerpts from the public’s favourite operas and ballets, their most loved arias performed in transcriptions usually for wind sextet, or sometimes a wind octet, both occassionally with an additional bass instrument. This Harmoniemusik was all the rage in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, most intensely from 1780s - 1820s, particularly in Vienna but also in Prague and Budapest. Mozart himself, in a letter to his father, mentioned hearing such a group playing on the street from his window and expressed his joy at hearing his own music in this smaller ensemble setting.

This recording forms part of Sony Classical’s further batch of complete recordings from the CBS/Sony and RCA Victor catalogues. This album features “a delightfully fresh-sounding” Michele Pertusi (BBC Music Magazine) in Zubin Mehta’s 1992 recording of Le nozze di Figaro with the Maggio Musicale of Florence. The BBC reviewer lauded Mehta for his “energising sense of pace and colour [and] consistently good orchestral playing.

This legendary album is finally made available to digital partners, as part of Warner's Otto Klemperer retrospective!

This release has been sourced from the Richard Itter archive of ‘live’ BBC recordings. The collection is very important for collectors because it has never been on the market before. Following the archive’s launch in October 2017 with successive releases featuring Beecham, Böhm, Cantelli, Casadesus, Karajan, Menuhin, Monteux, du Pré, Klemperer, Rostropovich and Walter, it has received universal praise from both the classical media and record collectors for the excellent sound and performances. Carlo Maria Giulini’s celebrated studio recording of Le nozze di Figaro was recorded in September 1959 following a live performance at the Royal Festival Hall a few days earlier. Nearly 18 months later on 6th February 1961 there was another RFH performance but with a substantially different cast from that on disc. Only two roles – the Countess (Elisabeth Schwarzkopf) and Antonio (Piero Cappuccilli) – were sung by the same artists.

Fritz Busch was one the greatest German conductors of the first half of the twentieth century, noted for his illuminating performances and his ethical principles. His father was a former itinerant musician who became an instrument maker, and his brothers were violinist Adolf Busch and cellist Hermann Busch. Fritz Busch went to Cologne Conservatory in 1909, studying conducting with Steinbach. The city of Aachen hired him as music director in 1912. He served there until the war began, enlisted, and returned at war's end to conducted the Municipal Opera.

Recorded with a stellar cast, one of the brightest and most insightful conductors of our day and a specialist handpicked orchestra playing at their best in the stunning venue of Festspielhaus Baden-Baden (July 2015), Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s “completely gripping, high-contrast” Figaro is “a brilliant triumph”, wrote Badische Zeitung of the July 2015 concert performance recorded here, while heaping praise on Luca Pisaroni’s “thrilling” Figaro, Thomas Hampson’s Count “illuminating every word”, Sonya Yoncheva’s Countess “recalling Callas’s vocal colours”, Angela Brower’s “fascinatingly delicate, sensitive” Cherubino and Anne Sofie von Otter’s “wonderfully perceptive, charming Marcellina”, all in a performance “crowned” by Christiane Karg’s “enchanting” Susanna and Rolando Villazón as Basilio, who “had the audience at his feet”.

The reissue of historical music masterpieces by ESOTERIC has attracted a lot of attention, both for its uncompromising commitment to recreating the original master sound, and for using SACD technology to improve sound quality. This Box Set of "4 Great Operas on Deutsche Grammophon & Decca" features the four works of this time are historical name boards which were produced in the heyday of analog from 1968 to 1977, and at the time of recording, each record company gathered the best conductor, orchestra, singer, the best sound, It was recorded with an in-depth session organized at the proud recording venue.