Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart, who appeared as “W. A. Mozart Son” or “W. A. Mozart fils”, possibly was trained as a pianist from 1795 on, but at the latest from 1798. In addition, he received composition lessons from Haydn’s favorite student Sigismund Neukomm and from Johann Georg Vogler. In 1803 his mother wrote to the Offenbach publisher André: “He composes small sonatas and variations for my festive days.“ Following his public debut on April 8, 1805, Mozart‘s youngest son perfected his piano playing with Johann Nepomuk Hummel and learned about composition with Johann Georg Albrechtsberger and Antonio Salieri. He left Vienna, the city of his birth, in 1808 and went to Galicia, which at that time belonged to the Habsburg Empire (today the region is divided between the territories of Poland and Ukraine). After two jobs as a piano teacher for Polish aristocrats in the Galician province, he moved to the state capital Lviv (now Lviv) in 1813. Here he stayed - apart from a concert tour of several years and a few short trips in 1818 - until 1838, devoted himself to extensive teaching and conducted a choir between 1826 and 1829. Mozart spent his last years in Vienna, where he increasingly appeared as a pianist. Mozart’s work primarily includes piano solo music and piano-accompanied vocal music. The works gathered on this album and on the two previous albums in this series provide an overview of the former. It is interesting to see how in one of the main works in this recording, the Sonata op.10, which was composed in 1807, he did not deal with the sonata form that his father had further developed, but with the thematic and harmonious construction principles of the Mannheim School.

This Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.

Also available on standard DVD

Mozart’s third venture into the “opera seria” genre, demolished its traditional boundaries to open the way to lyric drama. Blending youthful earnestness with mature mastery, Mozart uses - while profoundly changing - the elements of a genre based on arias that come one after another with no real concern for dramatic progression. The importance and expressive power of the choruses, influenced by the operatic reforms of Gluck, foreshadows The Magic Flute. Idomeneo is often regarded as Mozart’s first masterpiece for the opera house. After the fall of Troy, King Idomeneo can finally dream of returning to his homeland after a long absence, during which his son Idamante ensured the continuity of his reign and guarded Trojan prisoners, including Ilia, King Priam’s daughter. To escape from a terrible storm that is keeping him from reaching Crete, Idomeneo promises Neptune to sacrifice the first living being he encounters upon landing. Unfortunately, it is his own son who greets him in his native land. By offering her own life in exchange for that of Idamante, whom she loves and who loves her, Illia manages to get Neptune to yield and to deliver Idomeneo from his fateful vow. Robert Carsen’s “politically poetic staging” (Opera News), set in present-day Crete, features a first-rate cast including Eric Cutler as Idomeneo, David Portillo as Idamante, Anett Fritsch, as Ilia, Eleonora Buratto, as Elettra, and Benjamin Hulett as Arbace.

MOZART: Kleine Nachtmusik (Eine) / Serenata Notturna / Diver

Includes symphony(-ies) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Ensemble: Mainz Chamber Orchestra. Conductor: Günter Kehr.

Classical Music

This Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.

Also available on standard DVD

“Visually, it’s a theatrical feast of eccentricity … witty, irrepressible, unforgettable ...” (The Guardian) One of Mozart’s most enchanting works, Die Zauberflöte is a fairytale that uses familiar archetypes to ask provocative and difficult questions about religion, the nature of power, the bonds of family, and of course love. Premiered just months before Mozart’s death, Die Zauberflöte in many ways represents a new departure for the composer. Catching the spirit of revolution in the air, Mozart turned his attention for the first time from court opera to popular opera, writing this singspiel (‘sung-play’) for a new and much broader audience. Celebrated Canadian directing duo Barbe & Doucet make both their British and Glyndebourne debuts here with their new Die Zauberflöte, a veritable “theatrical feast of eccentricity.” (The Guardian). Ryan Wiggleworth conducts an outstanding cast including Russian soprano Sofia Fomina as Pamina, David Portillo as her beloved Tamino, Brindley Sherratt as Sarastro, and the ebullient Björn Bürger as Papageno.

This programme, performed by Chiara Banchini and Ensemble 415, gives a glimpse of Mozart’s early compositions, written in Salzburg, most of which were intended for performance at social events or in the open air. In pieces such as the Serenata notturna and the Concertone, one perceives a Mozart who was quick to satisfy both the demands of the Salzburg nobility and his own, which led him from adolescence onwards to develop an original language, free of stereotyped formal codes. After the success of the Red, Yellow, Blue, Pink and White collections (a total of sixty reissues) which gave a new lease of life to the pearls of the Baroque catalogues from our house labels, here are fourteen new titles which offer a chance to discover other treasures, whether Baroque or dating from an earlier or later era. Like the most recent series, this sixth instalment opens out onto the Classical repertory (Mozart by Ensemble 415 and Chiara Banchini) and the Renaissance (Févin by Doulce Mémoire and Denis Raisin Dadre); recordings that are an integral part of Alpha’s identity and history. Fourteen reissues performed by the leading musicians in the field, most of which received one or more awards on their original release. Proper booklets accompany the discs, with notes in three languages (French, English, German). Photographers from all over the world have been selected to illustrate the covers, this time with the guiding thread of the color green, a symbol of nature, fertility ... and hope!

“These are special performances and as a group make a highly effective addition to Jean Muller’s intended Mozart cycle. I hope that the next volume will not be delayed too long. I found the disc a sheer joy from start to finish and I hope others do too.“ (MusicWeb International) The present release is the third volume in pianist Jean Muller’s Mozart Piano Concerto project, and features the Sonatas Nos. 10, 2, 8, and 16. Muller has performed Mozart’s complete piano sonatas in concerts across the globe, on stages like the Shanghai Oriental Art Center in 2016 and the Salle Cortot in Paris in 2018/2019. He receives outstanding reviews from the industry’s leading media (BBC Music Magazine, Classica, Concertclassic, Diapason, Fanfare, Fono Forum, Gramophone, International Piano, Pizzicato, ResMusica, Stereoplay etc.) and has been a featured cover artist for International Piano Magazine. His recordings are regularly broadcasted around the globe, and he has on several occasions had the opportunity to perform live on the famous program InTune on BBC Radio 3.

"The young Israeli clarinetist Sharon Kam has now contributed her own interpretation [of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto, on CD] to the heap of other recordings on the market, and her entry is a formidable one. Kam's generous lines, gracious phrasing and purity of timbre in the Adagio make this second movement a tender lullaby worth the price of the disc alone." - Time Out New York

"With Ms. Kam the Clarinet Concerto sings. From the rhapsodic tranquility of the first movement through the sweet, wistful, melancholic flow of the second movement to the energetic playfulness of the finale, Ms. Kam and the Haydn Philharmonic are in complete accord with the material, producing a warm, elegant, refined, and moving interpretation. This performance is in every way the equal of several other notable recordings, like the classic one from Jack Brymer (EMI) or more-recent ones on basset clarinet from Richard Hosford (ASV), Thea King (Hyperion), and Michael Collins (DG). Yes, Ms. Kam more than holds her own."

- John J. Puccio, Classical Vandor

"Sharon Kam and her collaborators take the fast movements at a sprightly clip, which gives them added spunk, of course, but also added contrast to the tenderly expressive slow movements, which are played with utmost beauty and sensitivity. Kam, whose earlier recordings of Classical and Romantic works include prize winners, plays with a beauty of tone that would be the envy of most clarinetists. She also directs the Österreichisch-Ungarische Haydn Philharmonie, known in English-speaking countries as the Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra, famous for its complete series of Haydn Symphonies in UHJ Ambisonic on Nimbus. Predictably, the orchestra does the same kind of justice to Mozart, producing a sweet yet full, rich sound that’s the perfect ground for the richer tones of the basset clarinet. Kam’s partners in the Quintet are all solo-quality musicians who also specialize in chamber music, so you hear as much beautiful tone production from them as from the clarinetist...The Berlin Classics engineers provide a nigh-ideal listening experience: the sound is warm, intimate, perfectly balanced. This recording is a winner on all scores."

— Lee Passarella, Audiophile Audition

"Benny Goodman made this coupling famous on record – and he didn’t play the basset, as Sharon Kam does. The Haydn Philharmonie sound a bit period-abrasive, but the clarinet tone is deliciously liquid in the concerti and tenderly intimate in the quintet. As pleasing as any account I have heard in years."

- Norman Lebrecht, La Scena Musicale

Acclaimed across the globe for the beauty of his voice and the emotional power of his performances, Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Flórez, famous for his bel canto repertoire by Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini, shows in this concert another fascinating side to his vocal personality. The concert program includes many of the most popular Mozart arias – all of them magnificently performed by the Orchestra La Scintilla, an ensemble with outstanding reputation for their historical performance practice, led by Riccardo Minasi. This all-Mozart recital takes place at the Cuvilliés Theatre of Munich, one of the most beautiful Bavarian Rococo theatres. “Beautiful lyrical and elegant, Flórez shows all the emotions that Mozart captured in his scores – and the tenor's multi-colored spectrum of expression is impressive.” (Musik Heute)

“Youthful and vibrant accounts” of the Mozart Piano Concertos (Classical Net) recorded between 2001 and 2005 by Matthias Kirschnereit, a fine pianist still not sufficiently known outside his native Germany. In this 10-album survey, he is accompanied by the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra conducted by Frank Beermann. A MusicWeb International reviewer has called Kirschnereit “a pianist who is a perfect fit with Mozart’s warm and loving utterances”. Matthias Kirschnereit is counted amongst the most riveting and successful German pianists of his generation. The ECHO-Classic-Laureate performs 50 concerts annually and is celebrated as the "poet on the piano" by the Süddeutsche Zeitung. In this, he is following his artistic ideal of finding and communicating the musical emotions, the story and the human element of the pieces.

MOZART: Horn Concertos Nos. 1-4 / Rondo in E-Flat Major

This Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.

Also available on standard DVD

“He was out to create something ‘unheard-of’,” observed conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt beforehand. And true to form: What the conductor had to 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). PART I - Le nozze di Figaro + Documentary: Nikolaus Harnoncourt - Between Obsession and Perfection (Le nozze di Figaro)

This is the fifth installment of the SWR CLASSIC series dedicated to Hans Rosbaud. It contains on nine albums works by W. A. Mozart - a representative selection of the solo concertos, symphonies, serenades and fortunately also the rarely recorded concert arias. Rosbaud is an expert at presenting Mozart's charming and instantaneously fascinating melodics without trivialization and exaggerated sentiment. Hans Rosbaud was an undemonstrative conductor. Bernard Haitink has recalled that ‘…as he approached the podium you thought, surely that can’t be the conductor’, yet he achieved excellent results. As the Chicago-based critic Robert C. Marsh commented in a review of Rosbaud’s first concert with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in January 1959, ‘This modest, self-effacing conductor has authority, an ear for color and a sense of style. He is a musician to hear rather than watch... He seems to have the most naive idea of showmanship, but his musicianship cannot be questioned.’ The esteem in which he was held by his contemporaries was illustrated by the composer Francis Poulenc’s comment, quoted in Paris-Match in November 1954, that ‘The taste of music buffs little resembles that of professional musicians. Music buffs believe that the greatest living conductor is Toscanini; musicians know that it is Hans Rosbaud.’ And another major French composer, Pierre Boulez, regards Rosbaud as a model of what a conductor should be.

Known as a creator of astonishing images, stage director and visual artist Robert Wilson delivers a magnificent production of Mozart’s adaption of Handel’s Messias. Mozart was commissioned by Gottfried van Swieten to modernize the score fifty years after Handel’s popular composition (1742), mainly by arranging the wind parts and partially re-composing them. With Marc Minkowski a conductor has been engaged who understands perfectly how to combine baroque style with the tonal possibilities of an orchestra of the classical period like the Musiciens du Louvre. The excellent soloist quartet with Elena Tsallagova, Wiebke Lehmkuhl, Richard Croft and José Coca Loza merges perfectly into Wilson’s enormous flood of images. “A complete artwork”, praises Opernglas; “stunningly beautiful” (BR Klassik); “A stellar moment for the music” (orf.at); “Timelessly beautiful” Süddeutsche Zeitung