The Akademie fur Alte Musik Berlin continues it's PENTATONE Mozart series with the composer's 29th and 33rd symphonies. These works are coupled with his ravishingly beautiful Clarinet Concerto, performed by Ernst Schlader in the original edition for basset clarinet. Schlader, a specialist in historical instruments, has written an essay on the basset clarinet for the album booklet that includes a rare historical image showing the original shape of the instrument used in the years after the concerto's premiere. The first release of this series was longlisted for the Preis der deutschen Schalllplattenkritik. The Akademie fur Alte Musik is generally seen as one of the best period-instruments ensembles of today, and has a substantial Pentatone discography, including CANTATA with Bejun Mehta (2018), Handel's Concerti grossi Op. 3 and 6 (released in 2019 and 2020), Telemann's Miriways (2020), Handel's Messiah (2020), Haydn's L'isola disabitata (2021), La Passione with Christina Landshamer (2022), a recording of Mozart's Paris and Haffner symphonies and Oboe Concerto with Xenia Loffler (2023), and Telemann's Ino (2024).

A diverse survey of Mozart's 'occasional' music, including his grandest serenade as well as one of his earliest and strangest works, alongside two late and powerful masterpieces. The 'Posthorn' Serenade of Mozart has been recorded on many occasions, but perhaps never with such stimulating and contrasted couplings as this new recording from the Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra Pardubice under their Armenian music director, Vahan Mardirossian. These forces recently made an attractive album of Mozart's 'Lodron' divertimenti (97307); now they turn to the grandest of the serenades which Mozart composed while still in the service of the Prince Archbishop of Salzburg. The 'Posthorn' Serenade dates from 1779, and the harmony of it's grand introduction immediately belongs to the richly ambivalent world of mature Mozart. Everything here is calculated to entertain, such as the graceful pairs of minuets, and the extensive 'concertante' movement featuring a cadenza for solo winds, but beyond that there is a uniquely Mozartian pathos which emerges most strongly in the D minor Andantino. Little within Mozart's output could present a stronger contrast than the patchwork of dances and tunes compiled by the 10-year-old composer while convalescing after a serious illness in The Hague. Commissioned for a piece to celebrate the accession of William V as Prince of Orange, he produced this 17-movement 'Gallimathias Musicum'. By turn, the album then makes a characteristically Mozartian shift to the grave tread of the Masonic Funeral Music composed in memory of the composer's Masonic brothers in 1785. No less imposing in it's way is the Fugue in C minor which Mozart originally wrote for two pianos in December 1783. Rescoring it for strings in June 1788, he added a stern and prefatory Adagio. Known as the Adagio and Fugue K546, this has been recorded by forces ranging from string quartet to full symphony orchestra; the Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra presents a compelling middle way. - A substantial part of Mozart's oeuvre consists of works that may be called 'entertainment music'. Most of these pieces were composed for festive occasions in Salzburg, such as name days, birthdays and other festivities. There are indications that a number of them were meant to be played out-of-doors, in a rustic garden setting with party guests enjoying a drink or a meal. Many of the easy-going works were labelled 'Divertimento', others 'Serenade', 'Cassation' or 'Notturno'. - Mozart's Posthorn Serenade, composed in 1779, is one of his best known and most successful Serenades. The serenade's name is derived from the prominent solo for posthorn, a valveless brass instrument used in postal services during Mozart's time. It's five movements blend elegance with lively rhythms. From the graceful Andante to the spirited Menuetto, it abounds in melodic richness, charm, infectious brilliance and wit. - Also included in this recording are the lighthearted Gallimatthias musicumKV32, the moving Maurerische Trauermusik KV477 and the Adagio & Fuga KV546. - Played in Historically Informed Performance Practice on modern instruments by the Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra Pardubice, conducted by Vahan Mardirossian.

Mozart: Piano Trio, K. 498, 'Kegelstatt' / Violin Sonata No.

Volume 4 recorded live in the Grosser Saal of the Mozarteum in Salzburg by Cyprien Katsaris with the Salzburger Kammerphilharmonie conducted by Yoon K. Lee is part of the complete Mozart piano concertos performed in Salzburg and Vienna. It features the celebrated Concerto no. 21, K. 467 and the flamboyant no. 16, K. 451. In this recording, Katsaris has included his own cadenzas, compositions in themselves, for the first and third movements of Concerto no. 21: Cadenzas “A” affecting something close to Mozartian style and Cadenzas “B” following a freer pattern.

MOZART Violin Sonatas: in G, K 301 (293a); in B?, K 378; in E?, K 380; in A, K 526 • Ani Kavafian (vn); Jorge Federico Osorio (pn) • ARTEK 32 (73:55)


The strong-minded insights of Ani Kavafian and Jorge Federico Osorio become apparent in the very first measures of their reading of Mozart’s Sonata in G Major, K 301; their irrepressible high spirits emerge in the second movement (high enough to lend plausibility to Bruce Adolphe’s suggestion in the notes that Mozart had, with this Sonata, entered the world of “operatic comedy.” It’s not as though Kavafian’s tone on her 1736 Muir McKenzie Stradivari sounds beguiling or even altogether pleasant; in fact, many listeners may find that it sounds reedy and sinewy. But that hardly matters, in view of her compelling musicianship and the duo’s joint forward thrust. They impart a bracing vitality to rhythmic figures in the first movement of the Sonata in B? Major, and Osorio crashes to rest in cadences with a finality that brooks no opposition. There’s thesis for your arsis. I’ve always taken Arthur Grumiaux’s performances, either with Clara Haskil or with Walter Klein as models of galant expressivity, but Kavafian and Osorio match them and add a kind of expectant vibrancy that leads from enjoying one measure to anticipating the next (so that sudden changes of direction, as in the finale of K 378, take on an additional element of surprise and delight), and that eagerness won’t be a delight reserved only for those who don’t really know the music. That kind of straining toward the next measure lay under performances of the great artists of earlier generations; it is present in almost superabundant measure here. And it comes in the slow movement of K 378 as well as in the fast ones.


Osorio’s figuration in the thematic measures of the E?-Major Sonata sounds downright tantalizing—it’s a matter of the performers sharing a sense of irresistible rhythmic élan. Yet when the music turns pathetic, as it does in that Sonata’s slow movement, Kavafian and Osorio’s collaboration shifts appropriately to match it; and the Finale’s a whirlwind.


The Sonata in A Major, composed almost a decade later than the earlier works on the program, takes a deeper, more serious look into its musical materials, but Kavafian and Osorio’s approach hardly seems inadequate in this more developed work—for example, in the philosophically laden slow movement, during which they make time stand almost still, or in the finale, with its dramatic shifts.


Hardly a perfunctory or obligatory entry in the Mozart celebrations, Kavafian and Osorio’s makes a more lasting impression—not through research but through intensive personal exploration of the music’s possibilities. Not perhaps perfect performances (Kavafian occasionally swallows a note in rapid figuration), these nevertheless rise easily to the top of what I’ve heard during this anniversary period, appealing more viscerally than Mutter and Orkis (on DVD, Deutsche Grammophon 4213, 31:4). Recently, Mark Steinberg and Mitsuko Uchida (Philips 80004115, 29:1) took a comparably individual look at Mozart’s sonatas (though, in their case, one for a dark and stormy night); and Hilary Hahn’s readings with Natalie Zhu (Deutsche Grammophon 477 5572, 29:3) also made a very deep impression of strong-mindedness. But Kavafian’s and Osorio’s performances belong on a Want List, and maybe even on a desert isle; and the recorded sound matches them.


FANFARE: Robert Maxham

Includes work(s) by various composers.

Don Giovanni was commissioned by the Prague Opera immediately after the success of The Marriage of Figaro: Mozart and Da Ponte chose a subject that had just triumphed a few weeks earlier in Venice, Giuseppe Gazzaniga's Don Giovanni. Taking up the theme of The Deceiver of Seville, which had already been very popular in the theatre since the mid-seventeenth century, Da Ponte focused his work on the libertine character of Don Juan, no doubt inspired by his famous friend Casanova. The result is dazzling, never leaving the spectator the slightest respite between murders, scenes of seduction, cunning and fantastic apparitions: here is a grand spectacle served by extraordinary music, an absolute masterpiece, to which Prague gave an exceptional triumph. Marshall Pynkoski takes the characters here in a dramatic whirlwind dressed in Christian Lacroix's fantasies: Robert Gleadow finally takes on the role of Don Giovanni; and Gaetan Jarry makes the Orchestre de l'Opera Royal shine.

Classical Music

MAGIC FLUTE

Gentle classics: A dependable and psychologically effective way to soothe body, mind and spirit. The calmest creations of top-tier composers like Bach, Mozart, Brahms and Debussy; and peerless performances by proven and popular Delos recording artists.

This is vol. 2 of the "Haydn Quartets" by W. A. Mozart, played by Auryn Quartet and in the guise of TACET Real Surround Sound. After strong recommendations for the previous Auryn/Imai Mozart string quintets recording (Audiophile Highlight in Stereo, klassik-heute recommendation, nomination for ICMA) and lots of praise for the previous version of this recording there is not a lot to say. Except maybe that once again TACET Real Surround Sound musically reaches far beyond normal stereo. Every magical detail of the interaction between Matthias Lingenfelder, Jens Oppermann, Stewart Eaton und Andreas Arndt becomes clear. An ambitious multichannel recording is no high tech version of stereo, and for many listeners it is equal to a live concert. A stunning recording!

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music