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.
Listening to this work so soon after hearing Zauberflote one is amazed anew that Mozart could write two such totally contrasted pieces within months of each other. Here, in the composer's last opera seria, we are in another world, one of formality tempered by the deep emotions engendered by love and jealousy. Instead of birdcatchers and Masonic rights we are dealing with historic figures in a supposedly historic context with down-to-earth feelings. For each Mozart finds precisely the appropriate music.
Gramophone Classical Music Awards 2014 Choral category winner! Purely on grounds of performance alone, this is one of the finest Mozart Requiems of recent years. John Butt brings to Mozart the microscopic care and musicological acumen that have made his Bach and Handel recordings so thought-provoking and satisfying.
With the belief that “No opera loses so much as Die Zauberflöte if one strips it of its drama and that means, above all, the spoken dialogue,” René Jacobs’ agenda in Die Zauberflöte is to rehabilitate the reputation of Schikaneder’s libretto. At the heart of his reassesment is the idea that Schikaneder and Mozart’s Masonic message is deeper and more carefully presented than we have thought. He suggests that seemingly silly or inconsistent aspects of the story are put there as intentional false paths as the audience, not only the prince and the bird catcher, undergoes its own trials of initiation. The opera’s symbolism and structure are explained in convincing detail in an essay in the booklet by the Egyptologist and Mozart researcher Jan Assman.
Hilary Hahn and Natalie Zhu prove they are an excellent duo team in their first recording together, featuring four of Mozart's sonatas for violin and piano. All dating from 1778 and later, Mozart treats the two instruments more equitably in these sonatas than in his earlier ones. Hahn and Zhu are technically flawless together. They match each other as closely as two different instruments can to achieve a true duet sound. Just as Hahn "digs" into her strings for extra friction in the opening of the Sonata in E minor, K. 304, Zhu aims for the same tone quality with her touch. The two use longer note values, enhanced by vibrato and pedal, to give the music a pretty sound. It's probably more than a Classical era purist would like, but this is by no means a Romantic interpretation. Their slow movements, particularly those of K. 376 and K. 526, have beautifully rounded, cantabile phrases. The Allegro con spirito of K. 301 has bright accents and intense diminuendos and crescendos, demonstrating that this music isn't all elegance and delicacy.
Mozart?s concerto actually began life as a concerto for basset horn (not basset clarinet) and was written in the key of G. The manuscript ended abruptly after the 191st measure of the first movement. Mozart rethought his plan, decided to recast the concerto in A, and overhauled the solo part for basset clarinet, an instrument developed by his friend Anton Stadler The version that entered the repertoire after Mozart?s death was an adaptation of the original.
I was only a talented man who can be happy if he conquers the present; only a genius lives beyond the grave, wrote Adalbert Gyrowetz in 1850, and history has borne him out. Gyrowetz (1763-1850) was yet another of the 18th century’s prolific (more than 30 operas, 40 symphonies, and a large body of chamber music, songs, and sacred works) and talented composers who earned their daily bread by turning out what were very interesting, pleasing, but ultimately time-bound works. The symphonies on the present disc are all believed to have been written around or before 1790. The first two, Op. 6 Nos. 2 & 3, are typical classical symphonies that follow the standard fast-slow-fast-fast pattern.
First released in 1991 and reissued in 2004, this CD of Mozart's Clarinet Concerto and the Clarinet Quintet is fair in most regards except for the featured soloist's quirky playing. Richard Stoltzman's fans may like this disc in spite of its problems, especially if they are more interested in clarinet technique than in Mozart's music. But others may sense that he has little understanding of the composer or Classical style, and that these interpretations are superficial and whimsical, rather than deeply felt or carefully considered.