Although much acclaimed at the time of its premiere in 1890, César Franck’s quartet is rarely played or recorded; here it is at the centre of this third album by the Quatuor Zaïde, who have repeatedly pursued an original and ambitious discography off the beaten path.
The ambition of this new album by the Zaïde Quartet is to "bring two female composers of yesterday out of the shadows and give them their rightful place in the light of today". "Invisible", as the works of Clara Schumann and Fanny Mendelssohn remained for a long time, better known during their lifetime for their ties as virtuoso wives and sisters than for their own artistic genius. Through this programme of works by Clara & Robert Schumann and Fanny & Felix Mendelssohn, the four performers also intend to highlight the invisible links that unite them and allow them to shape a common imagination.
Classical Opera continue their series of the complete Mozart operas on Signum with Zaide - a new completion of Mozart's unfinished work by conductor Ian Page. Composed during his early 20's, Mozart began work on the opera in Salzburg but later left the work to compose Idomeneo, subsequently leaving no overture or third act. The opera is set in a totalitarian regime where a couple have fallen in love, incurring the jealous of the ruling sultan.
The circumstances under which Mozart started to write uncompleted Singspiel Zaïde, some time in 1779 or 1780 in Salzburg, are not clear. It may have been in an effort to get a hearing at the new German Theater in Vienna, but by 1781 he realized that a serious opera of this kind was not suitable, given the Viennese preference for comedy. He then abandoned the project, and it was not staged until 1866 in an adaptation by Gollmick, with an Overture and closing section by Johann Anton Andrè. Further adaptations followed, but the version presented here consists only of the music Mozart wrote, adding up to about 80 percent of what the completed opera might have contained.