For this new recording, violinist Peter Hanson, one of the most prominent period instrument players of his generation, turns his attention to Mozart’s extraordinary and innovative output of sonatas for violin and piano. Hanson is joined by acclaimed keyboard player and regular collaborator Andrew Arthur in this programme of four sonatas (K. 301, K. 304–5 & K. 454), each of which was dedicated to an exceptional woman of the time, with the aristocratic dedication of the ‘Kurfürstin’ sonatas for the Electress Maria Elisabeth Auguste of Sulzbach (K. 301–6) and K. 454’s dedication to Regina Strinasacchi – a performer of particular talent who gave the first performance with Mozart at the piano. For this album, a stunning copy of an original Walter fortepiano is used as well as a striking Guadagnini violin bearing pure gut strings.

Award-winning Lithuanian, London-based pianist Indre Petrauskaite makes her AVIE label debut with a selection of Mozart’s piano works with a twist: she uniquely brings together the composer’s solo keyboard works written in minor keys. The nine works offered here represent a fraction of the composer’s overall oeuvre, yet they span a gamut of genres – including improvisatory and emotional fantasies, enigmatic miniatures and complex sonatas. Indre showcases these pieces – much loved staples of stage and studio alike – in a novel and stunning album. “Strong and well-played performances.” (MusicWeb International)

REVIEW:

Petrauskaite has an original voice in Mozart, not something that's so easy to accomplish. She is what's called a strong pianist, generally avoiding the delicately lyrical style in Mozart except in small details. Although this certainly isn't a historically oriented performance, Petrauskaite avoids Romantic gestures and extensive use of the pedal except in the fantasies; her playing is clean, tough, and insightful. The album, as a whole, offers an emotional journey that's rare in Mozart recordings, yet in Petrauskaite's hands, it seems to make sense. A superior Mozart recording.

– AllMusicGuide.com (James Manheim)

MOZART: SELECTED MASTERPIECES

The 6 Piano Trios of W. A. Mozart, which were composed in the years 1776, 1786 and 1788, already show the increasing emancipation of the string instruments – while in the first work (1776) the keyboard instrument still predominates, and the two strings take on a more accompanying role, even though in some cases a distinctive one, the relationship between the instruments developed in the five works of the 1780s lead to an approximate equality. The peculiarity of this new recording is that for the first time the autographs, some of which have only recently become available, have been taken into account, which has brought about some changes compared to the previously printed sheet music editions, especially in the area of phrasing and articulation, and thus, the Vienna Mozart-Trio presents an authentic complete recording for the first time with this 2-album set.

Pianist David Fung is widely recognized for interpretations that are elegant and refined, yet intensely poetic and uncommonly expressive. His performances of Mozart sonatas are quasi-operatic, and full of drama. As a recitalist and chamber musician, Mr. Fung is a frequent guest artist at prestigious festivals and venues worldwide. Festival highlights include performances at the Aspen Music Festival, Blossom Music Festival, Caramoor, Edinburgh International Festival, Hong Kong Arts Festival, the Ravinia Festival, and Tippet Rise. At his Edinburgh International Festival debut, the Edinburgh Guide described Mr. Fung as being “impossibly virtuosic, prodigiously talented... and who probably does ten more impossible things daily before breakfast.” The first piano graduate of the prestigious Colburn Conservatory in Los Angeles, Mr. Fung holds degrees from the Hannover Hochschule für Musik and the Yale School of Music. His teachers include Claude Frank, Peter Frankl, John Perry, and Arie Vardi. Mr. Fung is on faculty at the University of Georgia and is a Steinway Artist.

Described as a ''stellar Mozartian'' Francesco Piemontesi finds a perfect partner in the Scottish Chamber Orchestra whose impeccable credentials are widely acknowledge. Piemontesi has performed Mozart exclusively recently, including a critically acclaimed 2015 BBC Prom, a Mozart cycle at London's Wigmore Hall which commenced in January, 2016 and continues in 2017 and Mozart concertos with the SCO. The Swiss pianist enjoys a particular insight into Mozart gaining a useful ''love of detail'' from his teacher Alfred Brendel, who was himself renowned for his masterly interpretations of Mozart. This recording couples consecutive yet contrasting works from Mozart's Vienna period: K.503 represents the longest and most substantial of his concert masterpieces and K.537 provides the soloist with an audience-pleasing cadenza. Conductor Andrew Manze, well-known as a HIP pioneer, shares Piemontesi's approach to creating an authentic performance, making this somewhat of a Mozart dream team.

“When you realize how quickly Mozart developed during the early years of the 1780’s it makes you ask: why did this happen? What was going on? It’s about the momentum of his creativity at this time” says Leif Ove Andsnes

In 1781, aged 25, Mozart made the bold move of going freelance, “Vienna is piano land!” he exclaimed in a letter to his father, Leopold, in an attempt to argue his case for resigning from the employment of the Archbishop of Salzburg. With both public and private concerts taking place on a daily basis, Vienna was the place to be for an ambitious young composer and performer, and Mozart was quick to realize the opportunities on offer. Within a couple of years he had established himself as one of the most famous musicians in Vienna but by 1785 he had competition on his doorstep. As more and more talented composers and musicians arrived in the city, freelancers like Mozart had to become ever more inventive to distinguish themselves and win over the public’s affection. It was in these two years - 1785 and 1786 - that Mozart’s musical imagination flourished like never before.

Mozart wrote a series of masterpieces and revolutionized the nature of the piano concerto. The five piano concertos, no.20-24, are game-changers in the history of the form. Mozart began to re-examine the roles of the soloist and orchestra and created a dialogue between the two entities in a way that had not been heard before. “It changes completely with Mozart’s Piano Concerto No 20 [in D minor K466],” says Andsnes. “He separates the soloist more from the orchestra. The first entrance of the soloist in this piece is very different music from what you have heard the orchestra present. This is the moment, which points to the future and the development of the piano concerto and of the beginning of the Romantic piano concerto, which is so beloved. Everything from Tchaikovsky, Grieg and Rachmaninov, where the soloist has a sort of “heroic” role. It starts here with Mozart.”

In the four works that followed, Mozart tested concerto form to its limits and made extreme emotional demands on his Viennese subscribers. “There was new creative energy in the air,” says Andsnes; “Mozart seems to have gone deeper and deeper into the idiom and its possibilities and tried new techniques. I don’t know any music that offer such emotional diversity.”

Mozart Momentum 1785 is the first of two releases exploring those especially remarkable years. It includes piano concertos Nos 20-22, the Piano Quartet in G minor, Masonic Funeral Music and Fantasia in C minor for solo piano.

“The idea of this project was to explore the diversity of what was going on in Mozart’s creative life at the time – to show that a separation between solo playing, chamber music playing and concerto playing isn’t really relevant,” says Andsnes. “You find that some piano parts in the chamber music are more virtuosic than those in the concertos. It all goes hand in hand.”

Leif Ove Andsnes will embark on this new chapter with a trusted partner: The Mahler Chamber Orchestra. Their previous concerto project – the five piano concertos by Beethoven – produced recordings that won BBC Music Magazine’s Disc of the Year, were nominated for Gramophone Awards and hailed as new benchmarks. “There’s so much more to this partnership than just exceptional playing; there’s a palpable sense of discovery, of living the music”, says Gramophone Magazine. The Guardian raved “You’d be hard-put to find a pianist and orchestra better matched.”

Soprano Lisette Oropesa presents her solo debut album Ombra Compagna, a kaleidoscope of concert arias by Mozart, whose music is very dear to her heart. These concert arias, written for important sopranos in his life, contain the most lavish and virtuosic music Mozart composed, both for the voice and for the orchestra. The emotional centre of the album is the aria “Ah, lo previdi”, in which the most sublime music accompanies the journey between life and death, as the spirit of a loved one slips away. For Oropesa, to be an “Ombra compagna” means to be with someone in spirit, a comforting yet heart-breaking testament of love. Lisette Oropesa is one of the most in demand lyric coloraturas today, who has triumphed in various roles throughout the most important houses in Europe and the US. She is accompanied by the multi-award-winning players of il pomo d’oro under the baton of Antonello Manacorda, who is a frequent guest at opera houses all over the world.

David McVicar’s classic production embraces both the seriousness and comedy of Mozart’s work. The audience is transported to a fantastical world of dancing animals, flying machines and dazzlingly starry skies. The setting provides a wonderful backdrop for Mozart’s kaleidoscopic score, from the Queen of the Night’s coloratura fireworks to Tamino and Pamina’s lyrical love duets and Papageno’s hearty, folksong-like arias. Prince Tamino promises the Queen of the Night that he will rescue her daughter Pamina from the enchanter Sarastro. He begins his quest, accompanied by the bird-catcher Papageno – but all is not as it seems…

In June 2021, the Klenke Quartet celebrate their 30th anniversary and have been inspiring international concert life with an unchanged line-up since their foundation in 1991. Consisting of four female musicians, the ensemble has established itself as one of the most important German string quartets and is considered "one of the most distinguished European formations" (GewandhausMagazin). Deepness, vocal quality, intimate music-making paired with a strong program dramaturgy as well as a sound intensity down to the softest note characterize the Klenke Quartet. After the successful recording of the string quintets by W. A. Mozart together with Harald Schoneweg, this recording again features quintets by Mozart, this time with natural horn player Stephan Katte and the clarinetist Nicola Jürgensen as guest musicians.

Mozart: Violin Concertos Nos. 1-3

With this release, the Engegård Quartet completes its recordings of the six string quartets that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart dedicated to his paternal friend Joseph Haydn. Written in Vienna in Mozart’s “mature” years — from age 25 until he died 36 years old in 1791 — they are a gift to a friend that hardly has its equal. He worked on them alongside many other works from 1782 to 1785 and proudly presented them to friends and colleagues, often in his own home. His own son believed he would have become immortal had he written nothing else. Mozart was himself a remarkable violinist and violist. His father Leopold made him aware that being as brilliant a violinist as pianist was simply a matter of the will. There are solo passages in his divertimenti requiring exceptional virtuosity on the part of the concertmaster, passages he very likely performed himself. He played the quartets with some of Vienna’s best musicians. Joseph Haydn, himself an able violinist, was among them. We are left to wonder what it sounded like. The level of sound was weaker than that of the Engegård Quartet. The instruments had sensitive gut strings, and the rather straight bow had fewer horse hairs than today. In addition, with probably less string tension, the instruments had a gentler feel, and playing technique was somewhat different. There is evidence for this in Leopold Mozart’s own violin method from 1756, the year Wolfgang was born. Thus we would expect the sound to differ from what we hear today, and efforts to recreate it can help us in our conceptions. As a matter of fact, Mozart’s own viola can be viewed in Salzburg in the house on Getreidegasse in which he was born.

REVIEW:

The music’s range and richness of invention seem to be endless, yet never forced, qualities that are happily conveyed at every point by this Norwegian-based quartet. Their collective approach is subtly different for each work in line with its overall tone. Engegård is a commanding personality, of the engaging kind who makes things happen around him without in any way domineering proceedings.

– BBC Music Magazine

Herbert Blomstedt has made more than 130 recordings with the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden. Most of them were made during his time as principal conductor between 1975 and 1985. Thanks to the fruitful cooperation between Denon and MDG, selected gems from this inexhaustible treasure chest are now available again. After the brilliant opening with Bruckner's Symphonies 4 and 7, now follows the legendary interpretation of Mozart's last four symphonies from 1981 and 1982. Blomstedt knows how to make perfect use of the qualities of what is probably the world's most tradition-steeped orchestra with it's "sound of old gold" (Karajan): The Adagio introduction to the Prague Symphony sets in powerfully. The magical sound of the strings fills the famous acoustic of Lukaskirche without any effort, and even in the surprisingly broad tempo, a wide-ranging musical arc develops, which can do without fashionable, superimposed drama. Cleverly and with the overview of a mature artist, Blomstedt arranges the relations between the movements as well as within the symphonic quadriga: the Allegro is fresh without being rushed; this creates space for a Presto that really deserves this name. Out of itself, the Schlager in G minor begins to glow, and the beginning of the "Jupiter" Symphony radiates with almost Olympian grandeur. Herbert Blomstedt is now 94 years old. He is still in demand on the world's most important podiums. His Mozart interpretations are already a historical document and yet timelessly valid. At that time, the Denon sound engineers were already among the best in the world. This also benefits these recordings in immaculate audiophile quality.

Mozart’s Violin Concertos need little introduction from No. 3 in G major featuring the 19-year-old Mozart at his elegant, witty and beguilingly changeable best, to the Sinfonia Concertante – the string concerto masterpiece – with its masterly mixture of noble strength and tender lyricism, these are some of Mozart’s most well-known and best-loved works. Handel and Haydn Society with their inspirational Concertmaster, Aisslinn Nosky, bring Mozart’s musical magic to life in these live recordings from Boston’s glorious Symphony Hall. “The music crackled with a feeling of playful rivalry and delight. With the two vigorous virtuosi leading the performance...the soloists kinetically engaged with their fellow players, sometimes looking behind as if to rally their allies... musical magic in the making.” (THE BOSTON GLOBE)

PIANO SONATAS