Joining the celebrations of the 250th anniversary of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791), BIS is reissuing a landmark in the past ten years of Mozart recordings. Originally released as single discs are gathered, for the first time, all ten CDs of Ronald Brautigam's complete cycle of Mozart's music for solo piano, performed on the fortepiano. Six discs of the 18 sonatas are accompanied by four discs with the composer's many sets of variations as well as occasional pieces. Together they form a panorama, seen through his own preferred instrument, of the great master's progress: from the 8 Variations (KV 24), written around Mozart's 10th birthday, to his last piano work, the Variations in F major (KV 613), composed some months before his death. At the time of their original release, these discs were greeted with the highest acclaim: 'I have no hesitation in recommending this extremely musical and imaginative series of performances' (Gramophone, August 1997) and 'Brautigam explores these 15 sets [of variations] with jubilation and a sense of wonder in each single instant' (Diapason; December 2001) are only two examples of the opinions voiced. Highly advantageous terms - 10 CDs for the price of 4 - makes this an opportunity not to be missed!

The Brentano Quartet, in their second release for Azica Records, present the Mozart String Quartets No. 19 in C Major, K. 465, "Dissonance", and No. 16 in E Flat Major, K. 428. Since it's inception in 1992, the Brentano String Quartet has appeared throughout the world to popular and critical acclaim. "Passionate, uninhibited and spellbinding," raves the London Independent; the New York Times extols it's "luxuriously warm sound [and] yearning lyricism"; the Philadelphia Inquirer praises it's "seemingly infallible instincts for finding the center of gravity in every phrase and musical gesture"; and the Times (London) opines, "the Brentanos are a magnificent string quartet... This was wonderful, selfless music-making." Within a few years of it's formation, the Quartet garnered the first Cleveland Quartet Award and the Naumburg Chamber Music Award; and in 1996 the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center invited them to be the inaugural members of Chamber Music Society Two, a program which was to become a coveted distinction for chamber groups and individuals. The Quartet had it's first European tour in 1997, and was honored in the U.K. with the Royal Philharmonic Award for Most Outstanding Debut. That debut recital was at London's Wigmore Hall, and the Quartet has continued it's warm relationship with Wigmore, appearing there regularly and serving as the hall's Quartet-in-residence in the 2000-01 season.

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In 2006 the Scottish Chamber Orchestra celebrated Mozart’s 250th birthday with this special release of Wind Concertos performed by the section principals of the Orchestra. Austrian conductor Alexander Janiczek was the ideal choice to lead the orchestra in the well-loved repertoire of his fellow Austrian. Alison Mitchell performs the Flute Concerto; its charming melodies and elegant phrasing belie Mozart’s claim to dislike the instrument. Written when Mozart was just eighteen, the Bassoon Concerto allows soloist Ursula Leveaux to showcase the full range and expressivity of her instrument. Maximiliano Martín gives a virtuosic performance of arguably the most famous of these three showpieces, the Clarinet Concerto. Written in 1791 for a Stadler clarinet, which extended the instrument’s lower range by four notes, Martín has adapted the text of the first edition (published with the solo part adapted to suit an ordinary clarinet) to make the best use of the clarinet’s lowest register as Mozart intended.

This album made the headlines in 2006 as the UK’s first classical “on the night” recording. CDs were made during the second part of the concert for the audience to take home after the concert. This is the first time this CD has been commercially released.

Symphonies 39 & 41 are among the last composed by Mozart. They use the full eighteenth-century orchestra, complete with trumpets and timpani.

Symphony 39 (K543) shows Mozart at his most exalted in the orchestral passages, while some passages remain intimate and touching, with more delicate themes. The Minuet features the orchestra’s guest artists, the clarinets, in a waltz-like Trio.

The “Jupiter”, Mozart’s final symphony (no 41, K551), belongs to a sequence of grand ceremonial works in C major. Typically for Mozart it juxtaposes a number of different contrasting musical characters and ideas, from the formal and aristocratic to the heartfelt and soulful.

In the finale, the composer’s compositional virtuosity is on display. Through the whole runs an extraordinary spirit, a mixture of intellectual excitement, the feeling of a grand design, and a sense of fun.

Graceful, refined, and irresistibly charming, the Flute Quartets occupy an exquisite place in Mozart’s incomparable chamber music. This light, airy music with its vivid contrasts, delicious textures and irrepressible wit is brought to life by the soloists of the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin in this new release from PENTATONE. Mozart may have disparaged the flute as an instrument but he shows no signs of weariness in these exemplary works which positively overflow with youthful optimism. The young unemployed Mozart wrote three of the flute quartets following a commission from the Dutch amateur flautist Ferdinand Dejean in Mannheim. Around the same time he also started work on his famous Concerto for Flute and Harp. The Flute Quartet in D K285 is a breezy affair written in concertante style which brims with attractive melodies. Its sublimely affecting slow movement was described by the biographer Alfred Einstein as “perhaps the most beautiful accompanied flute solo that has even been written”. The simple, unhurried Flute Quartet in G K285A contains a delightful interplay of instruments, while the Flute Quartet in C K285B has a charming theme and variations with a spirited finale. The playful Flute Quartet in A K298 is a later work perhaps written for a group of friends; it contains borrowings from other composers artfully woven into the engaging and witty score. The result is, of course, utterly winning. Ulf-Dieter Schaaff is the principal flautist with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, a position he combines with a career as a soloist and as an internationally sought-after teacher. He is joined by his colleagues Philipp Beckert (violin), Andreas Willwohl (viola) and Georg Boge (violoncello). In their first recording for PENTATONE, they chose an unconventional seating arrangement (with violin and flute on the outer flanks) in order to create a novel spatial effect in the music. They play these quartets not as a “Concerto for Flute and String Trio” but as chamber music written for equal partners.

Mozart: Requiem in D Minor, K.626

When Emperor Joseph II established a professional wind ensemble drawn from the Viennese court orchestra in 1782, he initiated an influential trend that gave composers an important opportunity to popularize their operatic music. The beautifully craft.

IDOMENEO

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Leopold Mozart' reputation has suffered more than that of most of his professional contemporaries, due in no small measure to the fame of his peerless son and to much spiteful and ill-informed criticism over the past 200 years.

Issued in cooperation with the Bayreuth Radio and part of Hänssler’s ongoing Profil series devoted to Wand, these performances—recorded at the 1982 Nuremberg Mozart Festival—are at once tasteful and stylish. The heaviness that sometimes infected the approach of such one-time admired Mozartians as Beecham and Walter is absent: tempos are well judged, mannerism avoided, the music simply set forth without affectation. I have always found this huge eight-movement serenade somewhat uneven, but it certainly has more than a few magnificent Mozart moments. And the great (extraordinarily demanding) concert aria, K 528, is projected by Wiens with virtuosity and temperament. Aside from a slight edginess in the strings, the sound is fine. In short, for those interested in the artists or the repertoire, this release is worth having.

Mortimer H. Frank , FANFARE

During his seven years as a Mason, and in addition to the incidental music for Thamos, King of Egypt and the Magic Flute, which abound in Masonic symbolism, Brother Mozart adapted or newly composed a number of works for his fraternity, some of which.

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Doing my usual bit of online research for re-released recordings, I found these CDs in their former incarnation as credited to the ‘Orchestra of the Old Fairfield Academy’. This band was founded in 1985 by Thomas Crawford, and changed its name to the American Classical Orchestra in 1999. Formed from leading period instrument performers in the New York metropolitan area this is a highly regarded orchestra, and positive commentary on these concerto recordings reflects the excellent quality which you can expect throughout this usefully packaged set. All but one of the wind soloists are members of the orchestra, and very good they are too.

This is a period instrument orchestra, so the sound is accordingly fairly gentle, though by no means hair-shirt. The upper strings are perhaps a little thinner than with a conventional modern orchestra, but with what sounds like gut strings and a minimal use of vibrato this is to be expected. In fact the sound is nicely rounded, almost sumptuous at times, and by no means cold. All of the orchestral instruments are listed at the back of the booklet, with makers’ names both modern and ancient, the modern instruments being replicas of early examples.

Eric Hoeprich is the only soloist not listed as an orchestral member, and indeed, I see him often enough wandering around the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague in his capacity as teacher, so this is no surprise. Far from saving the best until last, CD 1 of this set has some of the finest performances here, and the warm tones of Hoeprich’s basset horn or basset clarinet make for a lovely opening. The Clarinet Concerto in A major, K622 is one of Mozart’s late masterpieces – indeed his last major work, and is given a supremely sensitive if un-extrovert performance on this recording. The choice for using a basset horn is based on the instrument owned by the work’s dedicatee, Anton Stadler. This instrument has a lower range than a conventional clarinet, and the version here uses fairly recently discovered historical references to create as accurate as possible a reproduction of Stadler’s solo, right down to the creation of a new instrument replicating that shown in an engraving from a concert programme from 1794. The extra low sonorities do indeed make for an extra layer of sonority and richness which can be quite unexpected. Either way, it is a recording to cherish as well as one to put alongside old favourites for comparison.

From last to first, the Bassoon Concerto in B flat major K191 was Mozart’s first wind concerto, and despite inhabiting the gallant style of composers senior to Mozart the work is ambitious and technically demanding to soloists even today. Denis Godburn’s instrument has a soft and rounded tone whose warmth is both attractive and distinctive, and the recording is mercifully free of key rattle. Oboe soloist Marc Schachman wrote the booklet notes for this first disc, and he goes into some detail on the origins of the Oboe Concerto in C major K314, which we also hear on disc 2 in a version for flute. Historical mystery and obscurity aside, this is yet another excellent performance, with perhaps only an over-long cadenza to momentarily knock the some of the pace and energy from the first movement. The period oboe has a slightly broader, less sinewy resonance than the modern instrument, and this milder tone again makes for an attractive listen.

CD 2 is given over entirely to the flute concertos, of which the Flute Concerto in G major, K313 is arguably the finest. Sandra Miller plays a traverso flute from the period, which has a tone more akin to a recorder than the modern power-flutes we hear in orchestras these days. Unlike a recorder however, the horizontal blowing hole allows for greater flexibility of dynamics, colour and tuning, and Miller’s nicely centred tone rings out over the orchestra with fine projection and excellent intonation, making one wonder why Mozart had such an apparent loathing for the things. The Adagio non troppo central movement is a particular treat, the solo line topping the string texture while also being enveloped in it in a friendly meeting of musical lines and textures. As previously mentioned, the Flute Concerto in D major K314 is a fairly straight transposition of the Oboe Concerto in C major, if anything being given even more lightness and bounce in the flute version of the opening Allegro aperto. Indeed, the flute version shaves nearly two minutes from the oboe version, though this is partly down to cadenzas, all written or improvised by the soloists on these recordings. The Concerto for Flute and Harp K299 is justly popular, though I am sure this has as much to do with the wonderful sonorities created by this combination of instruments as with the actual musical material. Once again the soloists are beautifully balanced in the recording, and well matched even though there are no surviving usable pedal harps from Mozart’s time. The instrument used here must come close to what he would have expected to hear, with a marvellous transparency and gentle articulation and resonance played with fine musicality by Victoria Drake.

CD 3 covers pretty much all of Mozart’s surviving work for horn and orchestra. As far as absolute completeness goes we only appear to be missing the fragment left of a Horn Concerto K494a, and for that matter the Andante for flute and orchestra K315, but this is of little importance. What we do have are some useful notes by Robert D. Levin, which explains which works were written for whom, and how the score of K370b came to be re-united with itself after having been cut into pieces by Mozart’s son Carl. These performances on a natural horn do not bear comparison with the famous recordings made by the more beefy tones of legendary valve instrument players such as Dennis Brain or Alan Civil. The best period recordings I know are those of Anthony Halstead with Christopher Hogwood on Decca, which are admittedly more lively and characterful than these. R.J. Kelly’s tone is nicely rounded, and as to be expected from a well behaved classical natural horn, fairly restrained. The recording seems to emphasise the ‘damped’ nature of the instrument however, and there isn’t a great deal of contrast in the tone from one phrase or movement to the next. The famous quartet of concertos is K412, K417, K447 and K495, in addition to which we are given a version of a Horn Concerto in E flat major K370b/371 completed by Robert D. Levin in 1993. This was in the process of re-arrangement after Mozart had discovered that his soloist, Joseph Leutgeb, was unable to play the lowest notes at the grand age of 59 due to his loss of teeth. Levin has sorted out the confusion brought about by work done on the piece by Franz Xaver Süssmayr after Mozart’s death, and in any case restored the Mozart’s original intentions, “today’s hornist [not being] bound by Leutgeb’s lack of teeth.” The final track on the CD is the original conception of the Rondo K412, with the addition of faux-operatic vocalisations by Eric Dillner, expounding Mozart’s ‘sardonic dialogue’ as directed at Leutgeb, annotated throughout the score. This bit of fun is of little more than novelty value, and thank goodness the text is given with translation in the booklet. That Mozart, he was a naughty boy...

With technical assuredness and musical sensitivity from a fine set of period music specialist soloists this has to be pretty much the top of the heap when it comes to an authentic/historically informed collection of Mozart’s complete wind concertos. I’ve done a trawl for significant competition, but none of the ‘complete’ sets available seem to be on original instruments. Individual CDs can be found which do provide more impact from the music, and for those willing to spend a little more and do some searching around the Decca/L’Oiseau Lyre Academy of Ancient Music directed by Christopher Hogwood do ultimately provide more satisfaction and depth of quality in general, though these American competitors do come very close indeed. There are one or two moments of very minor orchestral scrappiness in some of the accompaniments with the American Chamber Orchestra, but nothing which will offend even professionally tuned ears too much. The horn concertos are perhaps the least inspiring of the set and more serviceable than magical, but with plenty of scholarly work invested in the preparation of all of these performances there is always plenty of fascination in hearing what must be close to what Mozart’s audiences should have heard at the time.

-- Dominy Clements, MusicWeb International

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Recorded at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in June 2004, this Marriage of Figaro was unanimously acclaimed by public and critics alike as a Mozart opera landmark. Director Jean-Louis Martinoty brings an elegantly intelligent narrative sense to an interpretation in which the protagonists, against a backdrop of magnificent canvases of 18th-century inspiration, are dressed by Sylvie de Segonzac in a palette in which every shade is perfect. Hans Schavernoch's set suggests an elitist society that is coming apart at the seams. René Jacobs conducting of the Concerto Köln is meticulous and perfectly balanced, offering a ravishing use of tonal colour and orchestral dynamics. A veteran Almaviva, the excellent Pietro Spagnoli plays opposite Annette Dasch's beauteous Countesss. As Figaro and Susanna, Luca Pisaroni and Rosemary Joshua are a truly sparkling couple, while mezzo Angelika Kirchschlager embodies the most divine troubling of Cherubino.