Mondo Secter

When this opera's oratorio was rediscovered in 1928, it was first believed to be composed by Mozart. But in fact it was a piece of the last opera of the Prague composer Josef Myslivecek (1731-1781), with whom Mozart had friendly relations and who indeed was inspired by Myslivecek’s work. This world premiere recording of the opera “Medonte” by the ensemble l’arte del mondo shows imposingly the exceptional skills of this wrongly neglected composer. Recorded live at the Bayer Kulturhaus, Leverkusen.

The orchestra l'arte del mondo under the direction of Werner Ehrhardt presents two world premiere recordings of the Silesian composer Anton Zimmermann (1741-1781) on its new CD. Not much is known about the composer's short life, which lasted barely 40 years. What is certain, however, is that Zimmermann lived in Bratislava in the early 1770s and became a key figure in the cultural upswing there. He founded and organized the court orchestra of the prince primate of Hungary, Joseph von Batthyányi. His orchestra quickly developed into one of the best sounding bodies in the entire Danube region. Zimmermann composed a large number of works for the regular concerts. His impressive compositional oeuvre includes sonatas, concertos and stage works as well as some 40 symphonies.

Das Orchester l'arte del mondo unter der Leitung von Werner Ehrhardt ist immer auf der Suche nach herausragenden musikalischen Wiederentdeckungen und sorgt mit den Weltersteinspielungen in der Reihe »Opern aus den Archiven der Welt« immer wieder für Aufsehen.

The opera is starring countertenor Valer Sabadus - one of opera's most exciting newcomers - now exclusively signed to Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, a division of Sony Classical. Christoph Willibald Gluck, widely known for fundamentally reforming the 'opera seria' wrote some of the greatest and exemplary masterpieces of this great genre before he started his famous reform of the opera. This makes this work a fascinating and enlightening piece in the puzzle for the evolution of opera and the eminent character Gluck. Gluck's setting of La Clemenza was first performed in Naples in 1752, ten years before his first reform opera.

Giovanni Paisiello was one of the most admired composers of opera in the second half of the 18th century. His reputation was mainly based on his comic operas which he composed while working in Naples. Although not born in Naples, he considered himself a Neapolitan, having studied at the Conservatorio di S Onofri. Paisiello's career can be divided into three stages. In the first he concentrated on composing comic operas, mainly for Naples.

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."

Johannes Matthias Sperger was born in Feldsberg in 1750 and trained in Vienna as a contrabassist and composer from 1767. He worked from 1777 in the Hofkapelle of the Archbishop of Pressburg. From 1778 he was also a member in the Wiener Tonkünstlersozietät, in whose concerts he appeared several times with his own works and as soloist. From 1783 to 1786, Sperger was a member of the Hofkapelle of count Ludwig von Erdödy in Kohfidisch. From 1789 he was employed as first contrabassist of the Mecklenburg Schwerin Hofkapelle in Ludwigslust.