The occasion for the composition of Mozart’s Missa longa is still a matter of speculation, but the Mass remains an exceptional work with its elaborate choral writing, extended orchestration and dramatic changes. The symphonic qualities of the Coronation Mass reveal influences from Mozart’s travels in Paris and Mannheim, as well as a move towards a more operatic style – the memorable soprano solo of the Agnus Dei clearly anticipates the aria ‘Dove sono’ from Le nozze di Figaro. The richness and variety of this work ensures that it has deservedly remained one of Mozart’s most frequently performed Masses. Working with many top orchestras throughout Europe, North America, South America, and Asia, Christoph Poppen is currently principal conductor of the Cologne Chamber Orchestra and principal guest conductor of Hong Kong Sinfonietta. He is former artistic director of the Munich Chamber Orchestra, and former music director of the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern. Greatly sought-after as a pedagogue, he has been Professor of Violin and Chamber Music at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Munich since 2003 and was also appointed Professor of Violin Chair at the Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía Madrid in 2021.

In a time where Mozart performances are dominated by an obsession with repeats, metronomic exactitude, precision of ensemble, and an approach that often combines slickness with impersonality, Casals might seem to have been a cellist forced to retire because of consistently faulty intonation and wavering technical control and who therefore turned exclusively to conducting when in his nineties (as he was when these recordings were made). He felt that if anyone wanted to hear what an eighteenth-century orchestra sounded like, the musicians need only play off-key—although he himself has been latterly criticized for occasionally ragged ensemble. Yet, for me, Casals was first and always a transcendent musician who loved music, who brought to Mozart the profound wealth of his own human experience, musical insight based on decades of visceral study, and a rare ability to communicate the richness and excitement he felt so deeply. His orchestra was totally responsive and committed. And what an orchestra!—with Jaime Laredo as concertmaster and Sergiu Luca as principal second in the "Haffner." Ever present is the shared joy of making music together. Casals's Mozart was, in the words of the producer of these recordings, Thomas Frost, "a fresh look at old masterpeices, unhampered by current trends, with a crisp spontaneity undulled by the routine of repeat performances." Casals's vision of Mozait exists outside the frenzies of fashion, an essential Mozart lyrical, compelling, transporting, with shadings in the darker passages mat intimate a depth which only music can express. There is here a reverence for these symphonies so often veiled from us today by scholarship which substitutes "authenticity" for inspiration, accuracy for conviction, exactitude for beauty, superficially impressive dynamics for an intense exuberance of the soul. As much as great interpreters of Mozart have given us, these performances provide this music with yet another dimension and one without which I shall never wish to be.

Jon Tuska, Fanfare [3/1992]

Includes cto(s) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Soloists: Walter Klien, Alfred Brendel, Ingrid Haebler, Rudolf Firkusny, Alan Weiss.

The Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and Alpha extend their series of recordings of the Mozart operas conducted by Jérémie Rhorer. After Die Entführung aus dem Serail, which received excellent international reviews (including FFFF in Télérama), here now is La clemenza di Tito.

Gilles Macassar wrote in Télérama late in 2014 of ‘divinatory conducting, a cast close to the ideal . . . The last opera Mozart composed, long undervalued, closes the chapter of the Baroque and looks into the future, blazing a new trail that looks forward to the nineteenth century.’

That outstanding interpretation is now available in this two-CD set, featuring a high-powered cast – Kurt Streit (Tito), Karina Gauvin (Vitellia), Julie Fuchs (Servilia), Julie Boulianne (Annio), Robert Gleadow (Publio) and, in the role of Sextus, a singer who enjoyed triumphal acclaim from the audience at each performance: Kate Lindsey.

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Kurt Streit convincingly embodies both the Emperor’s innate goodness and his agonies over the conflicting duties of office. Julie Fuchs's exquisite shaping of Servilia’s ‘S’altro che lagrime’ — music poised between Zerlina’s ‘Vedrai carino’ and the Adagio of the Clarinet Concerto — makes this aria the true Mozartian moment of redemptive grace. While Rene Jacobs’s thrilling performance — too eccentric for some, I know — would still be my first choice, Rhorer’s is a vivid, dramatically compelling addition to the impressive Tito discography.

– Gramophone

Although Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s first instrument was the piano, even as a child he revealed himself to be a highly gifted violinist. In this domain too he was encouraged by his father Leopold, well-known violin teacher in his own right and author of a violin method widely respected at the time. Even when Wolfgang was already 21, father Leopold reaffirmed his son’s violinistic talent, on 8 October 1777. ‘You don’t realize how good you are on the violin when you put your mind to it, playing with character, conviction and spirit, just as if you were the best violinist in Europe.’ That letter was written in the period between 1773 and 1779, when Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed numerous works requiring string soloists. From April to December of 1775 alone, the 19-year-old penned 5 violin concertos, in an unbroken process as it were. At that time Mozart was employed as concertmaster by the archbishop’s court in Salzburg, where instrumental music was highly prized. He had, however, previously got to know the Italian tradition and art of the violin in situ, frequenting students of the famous Giuseppe Tartini there, such as Pietro Nardini and Gaetano Pugnani. On several occasions during his three journeys to Italy, he also met the Bohemian composer Josef Myslivecek, who cultivated the violin concerto genre intensively. Synthesizing the influence of Italian masters with that of Joseph Haydn, Johann Christian Bach and French violinists, Mozart composed his own concertos, which sparkle with vitality but are at the same time both intimate and graceful.

Keyboard arrangements of Mozart’s compositions, ranging from one of his earliest minuets to his tribute to J.S. Bach, reveal the variety and fecundity of his imagination, not least in the inspired collection made by the great pianist Edwin Fischer, and in the excerpts from the playful Londoner Skizzenbuch. They are performed on two original and newly restored instruments, the Tangentenflügel – a transitional keyboard instrument with a unique tone quality that sounds like a harpsichord endowed with dynamics – and the pantalon square piano. This is the first recording ever made of a historical pantalon. Pianist and Early Keyboard performer MICHAEL TSALKA has won numerous international prizes. A versatile musician, he studied at Temple University under the guidance of Joyce Lindorff, Lambert Orkis and Harvey Wedeen. Other mentors include Dario di Rosa, Malcolm Bilson, David Shemer, Charles Rosen and Sandra Mangsen. Michael Tsalka maintains a busy concert schedule with recent performance highlights including Zhonghe Hall in the Forbidden City, Beijing; Palacio de Bellas Artes Theatre in Mexico City; The Royal Concertgebouw, Amsterdam; the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg; The Metropolitan Museum in New York; the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna; the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg; and Sydney Conservatorium of Music. He is currently head of the keyboard department at the Vanke Meisha Arts Academy (VMAA) in Shenzhen, China.

 

REVIEW:

 

Considering that probably most of the pieces included here are available in other recordings, this disc’s main interest may well be the instruments Tsalka selected for the recording. The tangent piano is not a rarity anymore. In the course of time, it has earned its place among the instruments representatives of historical performance practice use for the interpretation of keyboard music written in the second half of the 18th century, especially by composers from Germany and Austria. It has been involved in recordings of the oeuvre of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. In the booklet, Pooya Radbon writes about the tangent piano that "[its] design integrates elements of the harpsichord and clavichord into the fortepiano. The tangent piano’s strong, bright resonance is produced by pivotless bare wooden staves, striking from below relatively thin strings. The resulting tone quality is quite unique, like a harpsichord suddenly endowed with the ability of producing dynamics". Other attempts to save the harpsichord from being sidelined by the fortepiano were the addition of pedals to the traditional harpsichord, but these are far less convincing than the tangent piano. It is not known for sure that Mozart played the tangent piano, but he certainly knew one of its main builders, Franz Jakob Späth. Here Tsalka plays an original instrument, built around 1797 by Johann Wilhelm Berner, who seems to have worked for Späth. Whereas in the case of the fortepiano the use of an instrument of a much later date than the music is often problematic because of the changes in the building of the instrument, that is not relevant here, as the tangent piano probably has changed very little with time.

 

The other instrument is hardly ever used in recordings, and even many who have a special interest in historical keyboards, may not know it or heard it in recordings. Around 1700, the German violinist Pantaleon Hebenstreit developed a large dulcimer with a soundboard containing a combination of 200 gut and steel strings. These were probably played with hammers. Its sound was appreciated by music lovers, but it was a large beast of almost 270 cm long, and therefore hardly transportable. It inspired keyboard builders to make a keyboard which was easier to operate, lacking dampers but with regular iron and brass strings and several handstops. Pantalon was one of the names with which it was known. Most of such instruments had a rather narrow range, but the pantalon used in this recording, built around 1780 by Gottfried Maucher, has a compass of five octaves. This recording is claimed to be the first to feature a historic pantalon. However, I should mention here a recent three-disc set with music by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, in which Pierre Goy plays a pantalon from 1776. Never mind, it is highly interesting to hear this kind of instrument, even though Mozart may never have played it. That said, I personally find the tangent piano much more satisfying, especially because its larger palette of colours. I certainly am not keen to listen to a pantalon for an hour or so. From that angle I wonder how frequently it is going to be used in recordings.

 

The reader will have gathered by now that this is a most intriguing recording. Mozart aficionados who don’t have some of the pieces in other recordings, have the opportunity to fill a couple of white spots in their collection. However, this disc will especially attract those who have a particular interest in historical (keyboard) instruments. It offers the opportunity to hear an instrument they may never have heard before and only have read about in books or encyclopedias. Michael Tsalka is a sensitive interpreter who knows exactly how to handle the two instruments, making sure that their respective qualities come fully to the fore. The better-known pieces, such as the Fantasy in f minor and the Adagio in b minor, show that as an interpreter, he can compete with anyone.

 

– MusicWeb International

Besides an acclaimed series of recordings with Ronald Brautigam of the complete piano concertos by Mozart, Mendelssohn and Beethoven, Kölner Akademie and Michael Alexander Willens are undertaking a survey of Mozart’s serenades and other incidental works. Their first album in this series included the Posthorn Serenade and demonstrated, according to the reviewer on MusicWeb-International, that the ensemble is ‘amongst the best groups in the world of period performance.’ Since then the team has recorded works associated with the Freemasons, and here takes on one of the most famous of the serenades, the ‘Haffner’, named after Sigmund Haffner, who commissioned it for the festivities surrounding his sister’s wedding in 1776. A notable feature of Mozart’s serenades – and the large-scale Haffner is no exception – is the incorporation of virtuosic solo parts, here performed by the violinist Alexander Janiczek. On the amply-filled disc (almost 86 minutes!), the at times quite imposing Haffner is followed by Mozart’s ‘Musical Joke’ – Ein musikalischer Spaß, K. 522. A work in four movements, this is a delightful and very skillfully crafted parody of musical incompetence. It is written for strings and a pair of horns, and its frequent caricatures of the second-rate – whether in composition or performance – are brilliantly observed, by Mozart as well as the present performers.

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REVIEW:

The Haffner performance provides great rewards, with Willens and his players amply demonstrating their immersion in Mozart’s idiom.

– Gramophone

Mozart’s Requiem may have been written under strange circumstances in the final months of the composer’s life, but the work itself is timeless. Mariss Jansons and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus give a powerful and poignant performance of Mozart’s masterpiece with an impressive group of solo singers, in a concert recorded live in Munich in May 2017. Even its composer’s death could not halt the success of Mozart’s Requiem. Although left incomplete on his death in December 1791, having been anonymously commissioned, the Requiem was completed by a pupil of Mozart’s, Franz Xaver Süssmayr. By the time it was premiered in 1793, it was already a famous work, shrouded in mystery. But even more mysterious than the story behind it is the magisterial quality of Mozart’s writing, from the ferocity of the Dies irae to the otherworldly grace of the Lacrimosa. Genia Kühmeier, Elisabeth Kulman, Mark Padmore and Adam Plachetka are the world-class soloists joining Jansons and his orchestra and chorus. Padmore was Artist in Residence with the orchestra for the 2016/17 season and his rapport with the orchestra is evident. His ringing, distinctive tenor voice is well matched, too, to Jansons’s eloquent and subtle interpretation. “For him it is not about rhetoric, but more about transcendence,” wrote Süddeutsche Zeitung of Jansons’s conducting – suggesting a transcendent faith in humanity, even in the face of death.

The peculiarity of this release by the Austrian ensemble Pandolfis Consort playing on period instruments is that Mozart’s “Requiem” is presented here in the version for string quartet made by his contemporary Peter Lichtenthal, therefore going not only without choir and orchestra, but also without vocal soloists. Everything is focused on the four voices of the strings, which creates a special intimacy and intensity. As the founder of the Pandolfis Consort, the violist Elzbieta Sajka-Bachler, suggests, this ingenious version, made by the composer at the time to popularize Mozart's music in Italy, has the character of chamber music and music making because “the small space brings the listeners closer together than a concert hall”. Tears, sorrow, pain, but also hope can be experienced here especially close.

“Since I was a little girl, Mozart has always been by my side. His music is my happy place, whether I’m listening to it, playing it, or whistling it. And since the start of the pandemic, Mozart has been a permanent fixture in my home. His joyful, melodic music has given me a way to escape all the worry and anxiety, helping me connect with something deeper and live in the present moment. That’s how this new project was born. The desire to express myself and share some love and hope with the world grew stronger than my feelings of anxiety about the future. This music is my way of sharing a little tenderness, hope, and joy with you. May it bring you the same happiness and peace of mind that it has brought to me. Enjoy!” - Nadia Labrie

Also available on Blu-ray

“He was out to create something ‘unheard-of’,” observed conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt beforehand. And true to form: What the conductor had offer as he commenced his Mozart/Da Ponte cycle in the Theater an der Wien was something we “had never before heard like this” (Kurier). Nikolaus Harnoncourt, “master” of period performance practice, realized a project that had long been one of his dearest wishes: for the first time, he and his “original-sound orchestra” Concentus Musicus and his personal choice of singers were presenting the complete Mozart/Da Ponte cycle and harvesting the fruits of his Mozart research – an “enthusiastically acclaimed cycle!” (news.at). During an intensive phase of rehearsal and preparation, he was in search of a Mozart hermeneutic resting on historical sources and yet anchored in our own time, in order to stage the whole Da Ponte “trilogy” – Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte – in a matter of a mere six weeks. “The culmination of Harnoncourt’s involvement with [Mozart’s Da Ponte operas] – “A Mozart drawn from historical sources and yet anchored in our own time.” (Die Presse)

In their very first recording together, pianist Charles Richard-Hamelin and the Violons du Roy present Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s piano concertos No. 22 and No. 24 that are replete with passionate outbursts, startling contrasts, rich orchestration and overt emotional fervor. Charles Richard-Hamelin, Silver medalist and winner of the Krystian Zimerman award at the International Chopin Piano Competition in 2015, impresses with his extremely refined playing and the Violons du Roy, under the direction of Jonathan Cohen, offer grandiose performances imbued with dignity and grace. The Violons du Roy is a French-Canadian chamber orchestra based in Quebec City, Quebec. The orchestra's principal venue is the Palais Montcalm in Québec City. The orchestra also performs concerts in Montréal at the Place des Arts, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and St. James United Church.

Internationally acclaimed pianist Benjamin Hochman brings his new conductorial skills to the impeccable release of two Mozart concertos, the joyful and lithe No. 17 in G major, and the dark and explosive No. 24 in C minor. Directing from the keyboard, Benjamin leads the finest Mozartian orchestra in the world, the English Chamber Orchestra.

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REVIEW:

His rendition of the G major concerto is captivating: fluent and subtly shaded throughout, Hochman directs the English Chamber Orchestra from the keyboard with aplomb. Avie’s sound, as always, is clean and natural, allowing the music to bloom.

– International Piano

This OehmsClassics all-Mozart disc features two fine piano concerti, K. 238 and K.415 together with the overtures to Le Nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni. K. 415 (1782) is notable for having the largest orchestra forces Mozart had employed up until that time. German pianist Andreas Frölich, concert artist, professor and member of the Mendelssohn Trio, Berlin, has an accumulated discography of close to three-dozen discs. Eduard Topchjan leads the Armenian Philharmonic.

Covent Garden’s 2003 production of The Magic Flute is magnificent from a musical standpoint and more than that, it’s vastly entertaining. Visually, the production is a feast, the video quality here is extraordinary... Simon Keenlyside, Dorothea Roschmann, Will Hartmann, Diana Damrou, Franz-Josef Selig

"...a mellow warmth that was deeply satisfying. Simon Keenlyside triumph as quite the most engaging Papageno I have ever encountered, while the Tamino and Pamina of Will Hartman and Dorothea Roschmann were stylish and musically satisfying. With an exceptional Queen of the Night, Diana Damrou, this is an evening no Mozart lover should miss" David Mellor, The Mail on Sunday

"Sir Colin Davis presides at his most avuncular...he lives every moment of the score and conveys all its profound humanity." - GRAMOPHONE

Region Code 0
Picture format 16:9 Anamorphic
Running time approx 160 minutes DVD 9
Sound format Dolby stereo and 5.1 surround
Menu language English
SUBTITLE LANGUAGES: English/French/Spanish

The internationally renowned Mozart interpreter Sir Colin Davis conducts the chorus and orchestra of the Royal Opera House and a glittering cast in David McVicar's 2003 production of Mozart's last opera recorded, in sumptuous surround sound, live at Covent Garden.

EXTRA FEATURES
* BBC feature looks behind the scenes at this production
* Conductor Sir Colin Davis talks about Die Zauberflote
* Illustrated synopsis of the opera
* Illustrated booklet with biographies in English, French and Spanish