Mozart Tour

Mikhail Pletnev was born in Archangelsk, which is located in the north of Russia on the coast of the White Sea. By the time Pletnev began piano studies at age seven, with pianist Julia Shaskina, his family had moved to the central Russian City of Kazan in Tatarstan. Pletnev demonstrated promise and was enrolled at age 13 in Evgeny Timakin's piano preparatory class at the Moscow Central Music School. At 14, Pletnev earned the Grand Prix awarded by the International Jeunesses Musicales in Paris, and at 15 he transferred into master classes headed by Yakov Flier at the Moscow Conservatory. /quote]

Fortepiano phenomenon Kristian Bezuidenhout begins his multi-volume traversal of Mozart’s music for solo keyboard.

By December 1791, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had written the defining compositions in every available musical genre of his time: symphony, chamber music, masses, and—above all—opera. Opera was the prestige genre of the time, and Mozart loved it dearly and counted on it heavily for personal, professional, artistic, and financial reasons. Just the thought of opera, as Mozart wrote, made him "beside myself at once."

A film by Helmut Failoni and Francesco Merini. The prestigious Mozart Orchestra, the last great musical adventure of Maestro Claudio Abbado, narrated following the public and private life of a group of its musicians during the 2013 tour of concerts around Europe. The Mozart Orchestra was founded in Bologna (Italy) ten years ago by Maestro Claudio Abbado. The Orchestra brings together the best classical music performers in the world by mixing young promises and well established solo artists. Among them: Johani Gonzales, a young double bass player coming from one of the worst slum in Caracas and the famous German trumpeter Reinhold Friedrich. The documentary, following the Orchestra's European tour in 2012-2013, offers a unique and favourite glance on Master Abbado's work and on classical music players' job in nowadays. The film narrates, both from musical and human point of view, the public and the private life of a group of musicians: Maria Francesca Latella, Federica Vignoni, Lucas Navarro, Alois Posh, Reinhold Friedrich, Alessio Allegrini, Johani Gonzales. The documentary includes a long and unreleased interview to Maestro Abbado and concerts and rehearsals shot in Bologna, Luzern, Vienna, Madrid and Palermo.

Three of these marvellous quartets for flute and string trio were composed in 1777/78 during Mozart’s first extended tour without his father. The three quartets K. 285, 285a, 285b are undoubtedly among the most outstanding works in the genre. They share a lightsome, carefree quality with the typical shades of melancholy in the slow movements.