DIVERTIMENTO K.334 & OBOE QUAR

Classical Music

Classical Music

Mozart specialist Colin Davis directs an exceptional recording of this witty, sophisticated, compact, comic opera. The superlative cast, including a stellar Kiri Te Kanawa, and the excellent orchestra respond to Davis's finely polished account of the score, deftly balancing the humanity, irony, pain and humour of Da Ponte's complex battle of the sexes.

In addition to sonatas, variations, and concertos for piano and orchestra, Mozart wrote numerous works for solo piano: fantasias, rondos, adagios, and other assorted pieces of short and moderate length. We don't know exactly why these works were written, but we know that Mozart had to come up with new material for his many public and private appearances as a composer and performer. In those days composers were usually performers as well. Any composition was also a potential source of income from publication and from patrons and friends to whom the works were dedicated. But no matter why these marvellous works were written, we are lucky to have them.

Simon Keenlyside, Kyle Ketelson, Eric Hallvarson, Marina Poplavaskaya, Joyce DiDonato, Ramon Vargas, Miah Persson, and Robert Glendow star in this Royal Opera production of the Mozart opera conducted by Charles Mackerras on 2 discs.

The works on this album take us on a journey exploring Mozart's diverse musical horizons. It opens with the dramatic Adagio and Fugue, K. 546, a work with an almost primeval expressive power that can still shock today. The Sinfonia Concertante is one of Mozart's greatest masterpieces, it's luminous world of elegance and clarity delivering a message of hope amidst the most profound melancholy. The programme ends with Mozart's youthful Symphony No. 27 in which an intensity of expression and air of enigmatic mystery hides behind a gloss of graceful playfulness.

Classical Music

The Capella Savaria is the oldest chamber orchestra in Hungary to play on authentic instruments, and the ensemble's latest joint recording with conductor Nicholas McGegan features two Mozart serenades with solo violinist Zsolt Kall�. Serenades were a popular genre in the 18th century, and were usually written for special events (betrothals, weddings, the birth of children in wealthy families). For a court musician like Mozart, serenades represented an excellent source of income: in 1776 he wrote ten such occasional works, including the two pieces on this recording. Zsolt Kall� is a Hungarian violinist, and the concertmaster and artistic director of Capella Savaria. A student of Eszter Per�nyi at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, Kall� graduated in 1990 with honors, and he continued his studies with S�ndor V�gh. Kall� has performed with Sonora Hungarica, Concerto Armonico, Aura Musicale, and the Orfeo Ensemble, and he is a founding member of Trio Antiqua and the Authentic Quartet.

Classical Music

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) wrote his opera Don Giovanni on a commission for Prague where it was also first performed on October 29, 1787, at the Estates Theatre, which is the only existing theatre where Mozart.

Clara Haskil gave her first concert at the age of nine, and she garnered immediate public attention. She studied with Richard Robert and later continued her studies with Alfred Cortot at the Paris Conservatory where she received the Grand Prix at fourteen. After World War I she appeared with Enesco, Casals, Stokowski and Ysaye. On these recordings from 1952-56, Haskil plays Mozart's piano concertos nos. 9 and 19 with the Radio-Sinfoniorchester Stuttgart.

Classical Music

It is not often that a young vocal artist releases a debut album that is so "complete" or so convincingly conceived and finished to such a high polish as is the ase with Anett Fritsch. What makes it all the more astounding is that she achieves this by singing arias from the Mozart/Da Ponte trilogy of Figaro / Don Giovanni / Cosi, masterworks by a composer regarded and feared in equal measure for the complexity of his writing. Yet the repertoire focus she has chosen is entirely in keeping with the soprano's career to date. She began in her teens and has progressed in recent years through a series of acclaimed performances on international opera stages.

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REVIEW:

Anne Fritsch's Mozart is a sheer delight. This is no bland essay of the usual suspects painted in anonymous colors but a vivid portrait gallery of characters that Fritsch has portrayed on stage. From the very first bars of the Overture to Marriage of Figaro the playing of the Munich Radio Orchestra instantly makes yous it up and listen. A jewel of a disc.

– Gramophone

Born in Slovakia in 1979, Pavol Breslik made his professional singing debut at the age of twenty-one. Since his debut, he has progressively added more and more to his repertoire however he continually finds himself returning to Mozart. Warmly praised by critics, he has no qualms with his decision to return to Mozart: "When I go back to Mozart after excursions into other repertoire - like Lensky or bel canto - and feel at home with Tamino, I know I have done the right thing."