Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

At the tender age of nine, Felix Klieser dreamed of being able to play Mozart's horn concertos. Today, 18 years later, that dream has finally come true and Felix Klieser now performs on the world's foremost concert stages, playing the very works which are part of any horn player's core repertoire. Yet he took his time before recording all four of Mozart's horn concertos: only after releasing three successful albums and winning an ECHO Klassik award and the Leonard Bernstein Award did he go to Salzburg, in September 2018, to record them with the famous Camerata Salzburg ensemble. Now, the results of that labor are presented on this stunning release.

At the tender age of nine, Felix Klieser dreamed of being able to play Mozart's horn concertos. Today, 18 years later, that dream has finally come true and Felix Klieser now performs on the world's foremost concert stages, playing the very works which are part of any horn player's core repertoire. Yet he took his time before recording all four of Mozart's horn concertos: only after releasing three successful albums and winning an ECHO Klassik award and the Leonard Bernstein Award did he go to Salzburg, in September 2018, to record them with the famous Camerata Salzburg ensemble. Now, the results of that labor are presented on this stunning release.

There is only a limited number of works for two or more solo instruments with orchestra. One reason may be that the concerto genre in the 19th century became the stomping ground of the great virtuosi of the day, and the works themselves vehicles for the great and unique talent of one, special performer - not two, or three. Mozart, however, was evidently attracted by the sinfonia concertante genre and created some of the finest examples of it, such as the works recorded on this disc. Manfred Huss, artistic director of the eminent Haydn Sinfonietta Wien, make their first appearance on BIS. They are joined by alexei Lubimov and Ronald Brautigam, two of today's finest performers on the fortepiano.

Classical Music

MOZART Clarinet Concerto. 1 Trio for Clarinet, Viola, and Piano, K 498 “Kegelstatt” 2. Allegro for Clarinet and String Quartet, K Anh 91 (516c) 3 • Martin Fröst (cl); 1 cond; 2 Antoine Tamestit (va); 2 Leif Ove Andsnes (pn); 3 Janine Jansen, 3 Boris Brovtsyn (vn); 3 Maxim Rysanov (va); 3 Torleif Thedéen (vc); 1 Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen • BIS 1893 (SACD: 53:43)


This is Martin Fröst’s second take on the Mozart Clarinet Concerto, recorded some decade after his first bestselling album. He here performs the Concerto, as in his first take, on a basset clarinet. Rather than including the Clarinet Quintet—the standard offering on most albums and his choice for his first disc—Fröst has brought together an array of artists and recorded two other chamber works: the “Kegelstatt” Trio for Clarinet, Viola, and Piano, and the fragmentary Allegro for Clarinet and String Quartet, which was completed only in the 1960s by Robert Levin. Fröst here also follows the path of many a pianist nowadays and chooses to conduct the orchestra himself in the Concerto. It is obviously a work he knows inside and out and loves deeply, as his simple yet heartfelt way with the piece shows. In some ways he sees the piece ever more inwardly speaking than he did his first time around. Though he may be one of the most technically proficient players of his instrument around today, and the ease of his performances is at times bewildering, this should not be confused with emotional distance. His Mozart Concerto sings occasionally, but more often it speaks: the first lone appearance of the instrument seems to grieve over some great loss, the sighing motives made palpable by his ever careful phrasing of them—and this all in the bright key of A Major! His full attention to details of articulation, his use of orchestral swelling to add tension (sometimes a bit much for my taste), and his ability to color his line differently than the orchestra all add to the overall interest in the movement. The Adagio which follows is perhaps even more inward looking than the first, yet it reveals that glimmer of hope that will be fulfilled in the final lighter-hearted, almost bubbling Rondo.


The mood is perfectly set for the more intimate nature of the “Kegelstatt” Trio. Joined by pianist Leif Ove Andsnes and violist Antoine Tamestit, here Fröst and company adopt a much more lyrical, singing approach to the work than that taken in the Concerto, though the energy at times feels a bit low—once again a mellow, inward-looking approach is taken. And though one may quibble about certain details, this is spectacular chamber playing, as just a quick glance at the final Rondo will show: each and every lyrical phrase is carefully performed and thoughtfully answered, producing a wonderful sense of give and take, a palpable sense of dialogue. The small Allegro for Clarinet and String Quartet, of which Mozart left an entire exposition, carefully and tastefully completed by Levin, makes for a fine encore to the recital. The energy that the players bring, along with their fine sense of stylistic matters in terms of articulation, instrumental balance, and gracefulness all add to the overall joie de vivre.


Perhaps my biggest complaint is that this recording gives us only 53 minutes of music; were it not for the final fragmentary Allegro recorded here, or even if a few repeats were to be left out in the mix of movements throughout the recital, the entire Clarinet Quintet could also have fit onto the current recording, and with a stellar roster to perform it! And yet the performances themselves—recorded in spectacularly vivid SACD sound, making one’s home feel like a concert hall—make one forget one’s prejudices about such trivialities. So the real question should be: which Fröst/Mozart should you go for? At least one, and that might depend more on how you like it served: with a side of Clarinet Quintet or a “Kegelstatt” Trio. Either way, you’re in for a treat.


FANFARE: Scott Noriega

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!

Classical Music

Since its creation in 1791, Mozart’s Requiem has become one of the truly iconic works in the history of music. A prime reason for this is of course its musical qualities: as early as 1814 E.T.A. Hoffmann described the Requiem as ‘the most sublime achievement that the modern period has contributed to the church’. But even before that legends had begun to form around the work; that it was written to fulfil an anonymous commission – received through ‘an unknown, grey stranger’ – is the stuff of mystery novels, while the fact that Mozart fell ill and died while composing it has been exploited to great melodramatic effect. Among the numerous myths, one thing that we know for certain is that its first performance took place only a few days after Mozart’s death, at a memorial service for the composer. The performers used the composer’s incomplete autograph, but very soon attempts to complete the work were set in motion by Mozart’s widow. She first engaged Joseph Eybler and later Franz Xaver Süßmayr for the task, and in 1800 the Requiem appeared in print, in Süßmayr’s completion. This is still by far the most widely performed version, but it has also been severely criticized over the years, and many have tried to improve on it, or make their own versions based on the autograph. For this recording of the work, Masaaki Suzuki and the Bach Collegium Japan commissioned a new performing edition. Masato Suzuki, himself a member of the BCJ and the son of Masaaki, has based his completion on Eybler’s and Süßmayr’s work, explaining his procedure in the liner notes to the disc. The recording was made at the Shoin Chapel in Kobe, where the team has previously recorded their complete cycle of Bach’s church cantatas. A stellar cast of soloists is headed by soprano Carolyn Sampson, who also shines in the famous soprano aria Laudate Dominum – one of the highlights of Vesperae solennes de confessore which conclude the disc.

Among the most widely performed of Mozart’s piano concertos for a good half century after its composition in 1785, the Concerto No.20 in D minor still assumes a commanding place in the concert hall. Among its early devotees was Beethoven, who performed the work at a benefit concert for Mozart’s widow in March 1795 and who may well have found much to admire in the work’s brooding opening, characterized by syncopations and later punctuated by more aggressive outbursts; in his informative liner notes, the Mozart scholar John Irving goes so far as to call it ‘Mozart’s grittiest concerto’. Six years after the D minor concerto, in January 1791, the composer completed the Piano Concerto No.27 in B flat major, K595, giving the first performance of it two months later. This was to be his last public appearance as a soloist, and the concerto has sometimes been considered as a work in which the typical sparkle of Mozart’s virtuosity is tempered by resignation, as if the composer were already aware of his imminent demise. Such an interpretation is contradicted by a close study of the autograph manuscript, however: the concerto appears to have been begun two full years before it was completed. Its language is nevertheless more introverted than most of Mozart’s works in the genre: he seems to be aiming for a sublime delicacy of expression rarely attempted elsewhere in his concerto output. These two exceptional works are here performed by Ronald Brautigam and Die Kölner Akademie, on their fifth disc of Mozart’s concertos – an ongoing series which has been described as ‘a lucky break and a true delight’ in the German magazine Piano News.