Mozart The Masterworks

This imaginatively-curated, generously-filled Christmas package is sure to find favor during this and future holiday seasons. Why? Because it packs in every conceivable carol, tune, choral work or song in timeless performances from the greatest artists in the world: singers of immense communicative gifts including Cecilia Bartoli, Bryn Terfel, Renee Fleming and Luciano Pavarotti to name but four. It truly offers something of every Christmas mind, spirit, and looks fantastic.

This is an opportunity to study and enjoy a variety of chamber works drawn primarily from Mozart’s "golden years" in Vienna, 1781–1791. The centerpiece of the course is the set of six Haydn string quartets that Mozart dedicated to his friend, the great Joseph Haydn. Across the span of the course, you will explore works that represent the three types of chamber music that Mozart composed: Any chamber group consisting, in whole or in part, of a string quartet: two violins, a viola, and a cello. The "piano plus" combination: works for keyboard and some other instrument or instruments. Everything else: combinations that employ neither a string quartet nor a piano.

What made Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart perhaps the most complete "musical package" in history—a man who created more masterpieces of virtually every musical genre of his day than any other composer before or since? There is perhaps no better way to explore this question than by studying his chamber music. Nowhere is Mozart's maturity and mastery more apparent than in the chamber music he wrote during the last 10 years of his life.

Among the many popular Columbia recordings reissued in the Masterworks Expanded Edition, Murray Perahia's exceptional performances of Mozart's piano concertos surely merit the renewed attention. Over the 1970s Perahia recorded the entire cycle of concertos, and these have been favored by many for almost three decades for their consistent clarity, sincere expression, and abundant excitement. Conducted and played with a refined Classical sensibility, Perahia's readings with the English Chamber Orchestra are all bright and energetic, and these performances of the richly expressive Piano Concerto No. 9 in E flat major, K. 271, and the majestic Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major, K. 467, are representative of the wonders to be found in the complete set.

The Masterworks Heritage series, issued in the Mid 90's, received outstanding critical acclaim for the choice of repertoire and recordings, for the editorial /packaging and the splendid remastering of early mono and stereo tape masters. This excellent value, budget-priced, 28-CD-box set contains 20 of the best Masterworks Heritage releases. The CDs are in paper-sleeves with the original artwork of the former CD/LP. The booklet with tracklisting and the original liner notes in in English, all presented in special 2-part-box with slider. Featured artists: Claudio Arrau, Gregor Piatigorsky, Eugène Ysaÿe, Budapest String Quartet, Mstislav Rostropovich, Robert Casadesus, Leon Fleisher, Martina Arroyo, Leonard Bernstein, Eugene Ormandy, Leopold Stokowski, Bruno Walter, George Szell, Dimitri Mitropoulos, Thomas Schippers, Fritz Reiner, Philadelphia Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Columbia Symphony Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.

The Masterworks Heritage series, issued in the mid-90s, received outstanding critical acclaim for the choice of repertoire and recordings, for the editorial /packaging and the splendid remastering of early mono and stereo tape masters, This 28-CD-box set contains 20 of the best Masterworks Heritage releases. The CDs are in paper-sleeves with the original artwork of the former CD/LP. The booklet with tracklisting and the original liner notes in in English, all presented in special 2-part-box with slider.