Classical Music

During his lifetime, Johann Schantz (1762-1828) was considered the most important and respected piano maker in Vienna alongside Anton Walter and Nannette Streicher. His instruments were widely appreciated by musicians and composers, including explicitly by Haydn and Beethoven. One of his early fortepianos were integrated into the collection of old musical instruments at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna in 1939 from private ownership due to the fact that it could not be restored without considerable investment. There it was painstakingly restored in several phases and finally brought to it's present, playable condition in 2009. On this recording, pianist Richard Fuller, renowned for his decades-long involvement with historical instruments, presents this fortepiano with the Sonatas for Fortepiano in E major, Hob. XVI:31 (1776) and E-flat major, Hob. XVI:49 (1790) by Joseph Haydn. The collaboration with the soprano Karoline Pilcz demonstrates that this instrument has unique sound characteristics not only as a solo instrument but also as an accompanying instrument. The Arette italiane, Op. 31 (1790) and the Cantata in Honor of Marie Theresie Paradis (1784) by Leopold Kozeluch also date from the time of the instrument's creation, as is characteristic of this KHM edition.

The recent Kozeluch revival, featuring recordings of his solo, chamber and orchestral music, has demonstrated his status as one of the most important figures in the whole of Viennese Classicism. This double album dedicated to Kozeluch’s works for fortepiano four-hands provides further confirmation of his compositional mastery, on a level bearing comparison with his contemporaries.

Leopold Antoniìn Kozeluch was born on 26 June 1747 in Velvary, to the north-west of Prague. He began his musical career in 1771 as a composer of ballet music and in 1778 decided to abandon the study of the law and to move to Vienna, where in a short time he was able to establish himself as a composer and performer thanks to his indisputable musical qualities and his ability to cultivate good relations to sustain and expand his activities. Building upon stylistic influences inherited from his teacher Frantisek Xaver Dusek (the first Czech composer to approach the four-hands piano genre in a manner neither frivolous nor didactic), Kozeluch committed himself to composing for keyboard duo, raising its aesthetic and technical level and contributing to the evolution of a concert hall repertoire worthy of the same attention as solo sonatas. The large-scale works were recorded on an original fortepiano constructed in Vienna by Johann Schantz in the early years of the 19th century and therefore contemporary with Kozeluch. The Duo Op.19 and Trio Sonatas Op.12 Nos. 1 and 2, with their domestic character, were recorded on the Longman & Broderip square piano, a type of instrument extremely popular in the households of the day and therefore appropriate for Hausmusik.

Like the first two releases in The Mozartists’ ongoing ‘Sturm und Drang’ series, this record- ing comprises three highly dramatic and turbulent orchestral works interspersed with similarly highly-charged vocal items. The repertoire dates from between 1771 and 1788, and again includes one of Haydn’s great minor-key symphonies – this time arguably the greatest of them all, the ‘Trauer’. For the first time in the series Mozart is also represented, in the form of his extraordinarily visceral and darkly chromatic Adagio and Fugue in C minor, and the disc opens with an outstanding G minor symphony by the Czech com- poser Leopold Kozeluch, whose quality, sweep and lyricism will surprise many listeners. The two vocal works are genuine rarities. Schweitzer’s Alceste was one of the earliest attempts to create German tragic opera in the vernacular, and it launches with an aria of searing intensity. The scene from Paisiello’s Annibale in Torino – the twenty-third of his eighty-seven operas –features an exquisite but brief arioso before leading into a stormy G minor aria. The soloist is the exciting young American soprano Emily Pogorelc, and Ian Page again conducts his award-winning period-instrument ensemble.