Complete Chamber Works For Bas

This second album of Mozart’s complete Masses (Volume 1 is on 8.574370) pairs one work of exceptional dimensions and ambition with a miniature example. The ‘Great’ Mass in C minor is one of Mozart’s most spectacular and cast on such a scale that it embraces every human and spiritual emotion, reconciling the Salzburg tradition with that of Italian opera. The Mass was left incomplete by Mozart– it is heard here in a performing version made by the German musicologist and Mozart specialist Franz Beyer. By comparison the Missa brevis in C major exudes a spirit of festive concision.

Following a fruitful first collaboration for Mozart’s Piano Concertos Nos. 22 and 24, Charles Richard-Hamelin, Les Violons du Roy and Jonathan Cohen return this time with Piano Concertos Nos. 20 and 23. The works on this recording were composed by Mozart between 1783 and 1786, when the musician was approaching an important personal and professional turning point. First, the Concerto in A major, K. 488, was completed on March 2, 1786, two months before the premiere of The Marriage of Figaro, a work that marks Mozart's return to opera. While Concerto K. 466 is, with Concerto No. 24, the only one by Mozart in the minor mode, that also coincides with the arrival of his son Karl. The performance of the soloist and of the orchestra complement each other marvellously in these two masterpieces whose contrasts respond to each other magnificently.

St. Petersburg Chamber Orchestra under baton of Edward Serov had made series of superb recordings during the communist regime. Those recordings had unfortunately not been widely available even after the dissolution of USSR. Kontrapunkt in collaboration with Petersburg Recording Studio and Maestro Serov has restored and released many of those legendary recordings on CD. This latest release features two now deceased leading string players of Russia Victor Liberman (violin) and Yuri Krammarov (viola). The viola concerto by contemporary Russian composer Vladimir Tsytovich has never been available on CD before.

Piano Concertos No. 5, 6 & 8

Mozart: Piano Concertos

This set is offered at a special price - two discs for the price of one.

MOZART: STRING QUINTETS NOS 3

Liner notes are in German.

MOZART: OBOE CONCERTOS MIYAMO

Soloists were principals of the Philadelphia Orchestra under Ormandy.

BERNSTEIN CENTURY - MOZART: PI

BETTER THINKING MOZART

MOZART: DIVERTIMENTI K 136, 13

MOZART: DIVERTIMENTO K 563, ET

This is a DSD (Direct Stream Digital) recording

If you're looking for...self-confident mastery in the concertos, be advised of Sony's reissue...of the authentic five and some shorter works executed with splendid panache and stylistic savvy by Isaac Stern. The orchestras are conducted by George Szell and Alexander Schneider.

-- Herbert Glass, Los Angeles Times [5/12/91]
reviewing the concertos issued previously as CBS 45614

Here is a private portrait gallery for Ferruccio Furlanetto: all his Mozart roles rising up and meeting him in person and showing, in close focus, the quick intelligence and versatility of this bass-baritone. Here are Sarastro's "heil'gen Hallen" and Bartolo's "vendetta": here is Papageno's "Vögelffinger"and Leporello's catalogue. Here, too, is a rare outing for Guglielmo's "Rivolgete a lui lo sguardo", as well as the more predictable "Donne mie, la fate a tanti" with opportunity aplenty for Figaro to voice not dissimilar sentiments.

To Figaro first, then. "Se vuol ballare" introduces both the full-bodied headiness of Furlanetto's voice, here turned to heavy irony, and his verbal acuity in the stinging rhyming gerundives of his anger against the Count. Such rage is sharpened by anguish in the energy of his "Tutto e disposto", mollified by mischief in his lightlyhandled "Non più', andrai".
With the Count's wig on, Furlanetto presents, by softening and darkening the voice, a contrasting tint of realization and affront. His voice is perhaps a little heavy for this role, but he finds its hauteur as convincingly as the rude spitting rage of a Masetto. Furlanetto has the range and true depth of Sarastro's "heil'gen Hallen", and by skilfully lightening the line within its ponderous tread, makes each stanza truly melodic. He is a broadly smiling Natural Man, too, for Papageno. His feet are rhythmically firm on the ground when introducing himself, yet his imagination can make him a passionate enough lover in "Ein Mddchen oder Weibchen". There is a nice moment of hushed anticipation hanging over the word "Elysium", and more than one sob in the voice.
As Leporello, too, he enjoys anticipated love, if only vicariously, in a catalogue song which moves mercurially from the snapping rhythm of its short lines to the elision of imagined seduction. The accompaniment of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra under Ion Mann is lively, serviceable and unremarkable throughout.
-- Gramophone [3/1992]

Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos. 22 & 24

There is certainly blood aplenty in these bleeding chunks. As Salome kisses the mouth of Jokanaan, the lunar beauty at the core of Jane Eaglen’s dramatic lyric soprano reminds us not only of the chilling purity of Salome’s corruption, but of just what we are missing in hearing Eaglen live so little in Britain.

The partnership of Eaglen and the Israel Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta is at its strongest in the Richard Strauss tracks of this Mozart and Strauss compilation. The orchestra’s superbly balanced wind soloists create dark shadows for Guntram’s Freihild, as she reflects within them, at first perplexed and then, in unflaggingly focused voice, thankful for her love for the Minnesinger – and for the glory of her top B. If Ariadne’s distraction is captured rather less convincingly, then the sustained rapture of Die Aegyptische Helena’s “Zweite Brautnacht!” draws the full effulgence from Eaglen’s golden soprano in what seems to be one breathless sentence.

The five Mozart arias here remind us just what a formidable Mozartian Eaglen is; and one only wishes that Mehta were her equal in this respect. I found myself constantly longing for a livelier orchestral presence, warmer phrasing, more discriminating support. Eaglen’s bleached tone in Donna Anna’s “Non mi dir” gives way to some considerable tension in the florid, high-lying passages, and the matter-of-fact, even peremptory accompaniment of “Or sai chi l’onore” doesn’t help her in what becomes a somewhat shrill revelation.

Eaglen’s own skills at pacing and charging with emotion Electra’s passages of accompanied recitative make for real momentum, lit by a bright platinum gleam in the voice in “Oh smania! ... D’Oreste, d’Aiace”; and her instinctive phrasing gives eloquent voice to Electra’s more demure moments in “Idol mio”.'

-- Hilary Finch, Gramophone [6/1998]

Mozart: Divertimenti, K. 252 and 287

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]

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music