Mozart Trio

A brilliant start and now the sequel on Vol. 2 with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's complete basset horn trios in arrangements by Ulf-Guido Schafer for trio d'anches. From the twenty-five individual movements - in part of quite enigmatic transmission - Schafer has put together two more highly entertaining divertimentos. Deeply moving excerpts from Cosi fan tutte form a dramatic contrast to the serenade tone of the trios. The trio d'anches consisting of an oboe, a clarinet, and a bassoon is actually a creation of the twentieth century. French composers in particular felt inspired by the homogeneous sound of this ensemble not unlike the sound of the human singing voice.

The ensemble of “trio d’anches” featuring the oboe, clarinet, and bassoon was first established in the 1920s and features on this brand new recording on SACD with the glorious music of Mozart arranged by Ulf-Guido Schäfer. His trio has now been recorded on the big sound of this Super Audio CD - a revelation for specialists in the field of wind chamber music.

This set restores to circulation Bruno Walter's New York Philharmonic versions of the mature Mozart symphonies (35-41). These were recorded in decent mono during the early LP era (1953-1956). Listeners familiar with his stereo versions of these works with the Columbia Symphony (an ad hoc ensemble formed largely for the sake of Walter's Indian Summer recording projects) will note some marked interpretative differences in the earlier recordings. The NYPO provides leaner textures and more alert playing, and Walter's conducting conveys greater vitality, than in the plusher and sometimes too languid Columbia Symphony recordings.

Founded in 1969 at the Juilliard School of Music, the Tokyo Quartet have amassed a fine and distinguished array of recordings for various labels, many enthusiastically received. In 2013 they disbanded after their longest serving members, the second violin Kikuei Ikeda and viola Kazuhide Isomura, decided to retire. Their final concert took place in Norfolk, Connecticut on 6 July 2013. For the last ten years of their existence, they were contracted to the Harmonia Mundi stable.

This Collection of Mozart fetaures some of the leading period-instrument ensembles and spans the oeuvre of Mozart's works. Included excellent readings of the 'Prague' Symphony and the Requiem.

Every major conductor, and most not-so-major ones, comes around to recording Eine kleine Nachtmusik, but not so many do it as well as George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra strings. And let’s face it, you won’t find a period-instrument ensemble that plays with anything like this level of polish. The fact is, Szell’s conception of Mozart was not terribly far from “period” sensibilities: restrained use of vibrato, incisive rhythms, crisp ensemble, lively tempos, but also a welcome degree of warmth to the sound and of course incredible ensemble discipline and some of the best players on the planet. And he had real period instruments, meaning performers who owned top quality old violins and bows, not inferior modern reproductions of them. The result is as lovely a performance of Mozart’s perennially delicious Serenade as we are ever likely to hear.

Melodiya presents recordings of chamber music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Alfred Schnittke performed by the trio led by the outstanding musician Mark Lubotsky. Despite a 200-year gap between them, the music of these composers has much in common. It is the versatility of the genre palette, the combination of daring and bold innovation and the sense of continuity, an acute awareness of the tragedy of earthly existence while maintaining an objective attitude to the art.

This doesn't really work, but Jacques Loussier's attempt to make Mozart work as jazz is sufficiently complex enough to make you ask, as you're hearing it, why it isn't working, and maybe that's a worthwhile thing. As the liner notes point out, it is most often Bach among classical composers whose music has served as the basis for jazz experiments. Mozart-jazz is much rarer.

Is it a classical, jazz, klezmer or tango album? Stylistically, the second album by the still young trio ClariNoir is difficult to categorize, because it combines the entire musical range of the young musicians in the compositions by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ilja Ruf.