The cassette version of this recording is no longer available.

MOZART Serenade in Bb, K 361 “Gran Partita”. Fantasia in f, K 608 • Stuttgart Winds • TACET 209 (Blu-ray audio: 57:20)

This Blu-ray disc comes in surround sound, so I’ll confess that I listened to it using my HD television with its sound bar rather than on my high-end stereo system. It’s a remarkable performance of a favorite work, which I and many others first heard on an old LP conducted by Otto Klemperer. Some readers might also remember the critic B. H. Haggin’s surprise that anything conducted by Klemperer, whom he usually disliked, could be so graceful. Haggin attributed it to the band. Perhaps it is a piece that in professional hands can’t go too wrong. Here everything seems right, including the recorded sound in stereo. There is grace abounding, and beautifully etched phrases and balance among the players, each of whom is profiled in the ample notes. The fetching opening with its prominent clarinet and oboe parts couldn’t be more touching, and the energy of the whole performance is equally appealing. I have a stack of recordings of this work, including those conducted by Mackerras, and others played by groups such as the Sixth Floor Orchestra. I’d recommend this delightful new disc, though, to anyone, especially to those with surround sound systems.

FANFARE: Michael Ullman

Classical Music

Paul Badura-Skoda Plays Mozart: Piano Concertos: No. 25 in C, K503, with Horst Stein conducting the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (performed live 15 June 1978) and No. 22 in Eb, K482, with George Szell conducting the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra (performed live 19 & 20 Dec. 1959). K503: first release; K482: first time on CD. Extensive notes on the music and on these performances by Badura-Skoda. Booklet includes his CD discography. A co-production with the VPO and ORF1 (Austrian Radio). Sparkling performances of two Mozart gems by one of his foremost 20th century interpreters, in the best possible sound.

Mozart's Piano Quartets K 478 and 493 with the wonderful German Gaede String Trio and the outstanding Austrian pianist Markus Schirmer: this is pure chamber music delight, highly sensitive and exciting, sensual and fresh as the dew, clever in it's formal and concertante calculation: here Mozart allows for both common obscurity and lively dialogue. (Tirol online)

Following on from the first two releases, volume 3 concludes the complete set of Mozart string quintets on this release. Once again they are palyed by the Auryn Quartet with Nobuko Imai, viola. ''The Auryn Quartet and Nobuko Imai again fully convince with one much elaborated and at the same time very natural Mozart. Their music making is supported by the outstanding recording quality and gives us a stunning opportunity to rediscover these incomprehensibly not so popular works under the best possible conditions. (Pizzicato)

BUZZ: There was a time--specifically, the middle years of the 20th century--when the music in this recital used commonly to be played in a somewhat prettified, Dresden-china fashion. Nothing could be more different than Claudio Arrau's approach to Mozart even in the relatively early stages of his career (and he was sixty-one when these live performances were given). Certainly, some other pianists in those days gave full value to the dramatic power of the minor-key sonatas, K. 310 and K. 457, though very few approached the sheer volcanic force he brought to those bass octaves in the A-minor's finale. But you encounter Arrau's no-holds-barred style even in seemingly less serious works: the finale of K. 283, for example, already sounds, under his hands, more unpredictably Beethovenish than in the interpretations of some of his contemporaries; and in the relatively relaxed finale of K. 570, he punches out the insistent staccato repeated notes of the contrasting central episode with positively demonic relish. This, then, is in an important sense "bigger" Mozart playing than was the norm 50 years ago. At the same time, the clarity of Arrau's texture and the often airy lightness of his pedaling keeps his view of the music from transgressing 18th-century stylistic norms. And while his reputation is based to a degree on his notably classical restraint, you will find in these performances any number of moments when the wit of his timing creates a delightfully mischievous effect. Baldwin piano. Restoration engineer: Gene Gaudette. Premiere CD release! Issued with the kind permission of the Arrau Estate. AAD stereo Total Time:100 min.

These performances are also included on Sony's 10-disc set "Bruno Walter
Edition Volume 3" - Sony Classical 66248.

Mozart: Ave verum corpus, K. 618 & Requiem in D Minor, K. 62

Classical Music

Mozart: Sonatas & Variations

Also available on Blu-ray

'A marriage of distinction. An energetic, fresh-voiced cast...Teddy Tahu Rhodes and Taryn Feibig were a vivacious, appealing pairing...vocally strong and agile' (The Australian)

'As the Countess, Rachelle Durkin mixed statuesque hauteur with girlish puppy love...refined phrasing and beautifully poised tonal control' (The Sydney Morning Herald)

Classical Music

Classical Music

TOSCANINI COLLECTION VOL 71 -

Classical Music

String quartets by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart without historical performance practice - is that even possible nowadays? -Of course it is! At the same time, there is probably no serious classical musician who has entirely escaped its influence in some shape or form. We are not just talking about diligence in choosing "urtext editions" or in the choice of instrument. The changes creep into the smallest details of phrasing which people simply can't do as they used to, even subconsciously. This is borne by listening to many performances. Of course the Auryn Quartet is also subject to these influences. If, despite this, their performances seem conventional, then it's deceptive as their playing style is no longer conventional when seen in the light of modern performance practice. They refer back to a playing style that could be termed "historical" in a wholly different way, namely that of a musical generation that has now died out. Their role models and teachers were the Amadeus Quartet and the Guarnieri Quartet. The members of the Auryn Quartet were musically "socialized" in a different era to younger musicians and they choose not to discard the aesthetic sensibilities acquired in their youth as though they were just old-fashioned garments. They love the beautiful "old" string sound and keep this tradition alive, but with the diligence expected of today's musicians. The result is timelessly beautiful music.

Mozart: Violin Sonatas

BEST MOZART

According to Roger Lustig's well-researched programme notes, Mozart's self-declared dislike for the flute says more about the circumstances surrounding the composition of his works for the instrument than it does about any real hatred for the instrument itself. Furthermore, the performances of the Flute Quartets by James Galway and the Tokyo Quartet, here under review, speak equally eloquently for Mozart's evident care in their composition—this despite Hans Keller's dismissal of them.

The first two quartets, K285 and K285a were written in 1776/7 for the Dutch nobleman Dejean. The playing here is full of Mozartian grace and sensuous melodiousness. At the beginning of the possibly inauthentic C major Quartet, K285b, Galway achieves a delightful liquid quality. The later Quartet, K298 is more substantial and draws playing of haunting intensity from Galway and the Tokyo. The slow tempo of this Quartet's second movement is slower than in the Bennett/Grumiaux version on Philips whose performance has a much more jaunty feel to it. Galway's disc is rounded off with his own arrangement of the Oboe Quartet, K370, whose sumptuous slow movement and elegant finale make this an attractive added bonus. One minor reservation: it is useful to have individual variations separately tracked (K285b.2 and K298.1) but, in the earlier Quartet, there is an annoying click on my disc as the tracks change.

The principal difference between the Galway/ Tokyo and the Bennett/Grumiaux versions reflects the recordings and the circumstances surrounding them. Galway's choice of slower tempos might well have been conditioned, at least in part, by the spacious church acoustic in which it was recorded. The Bennett/Grumiaux was recorded in 1969, but the digital transfer is excellent. These are both fine discs, so choice will be determined by personal taste.'

-- Gramophone [6/1993]

Walter Berry reflected in an interview in 1985, "we played in the Theater an der Wien (during the rebuilding of the Vienna State Opera) and we developed a certain style, a Mozart style which was connected very much to the singers of that time … this was an incredible ensemble." Harold Rosenthal, Editor of Opera magazine, described the staged performance at London’s Royal Festival Hall on 13 September 1954 as ‘a sheer delight’, highlighting the performances of Erich Kunz (Figaro) and Sena Jurinac (Cherubino), while Irmgard Seefried (Susanna) was ‘one of the joys of this recording’ (George Hall). These Richard Itter tapes of the live broadcast have never been released before, and the superb recording fully captures the atmosphere in this light-footed performance in a packed Royal Festival Hall to perfection.

Mozart's Flute Quartets appear on this DVD with excellent sound, and with the instrumentalists situated around the listener, which has become the trademark of the TACET label. The result is a chamber music tonal picture in which all the instruments are of equal importance and the flute does not force itself to the fore. Musically the recording is also remarkable; (crescendo) TACET's creative use of this multichannel medium takes Mozart's lovely Baroque background music out of the soporific and into the energetic. And the playing is first rate. (Audiophile Audition)

MOZART: VIOLIN CONCERTO NO 2,

Classical Music

Mozart: Serenade No. 7 in D Major, K. 250 "Haffner"