Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau conducted his last concert in Salzburg in 2006, in which he led the Mozarteum Orchestra. A concert devoted entirely to Mozart, pianist Konstantin Lifschitz was not just a soloist but a partner in dialogue in the Piano Concerto. The concert solemnly begins with the Adagio and Fugue and triumphantly ends with the “Italian” Symphony.

Classical Music

Mozart composed his violin concertos in 1773 (K 207) and 1775 (K 211, 216, 218 and 219). These five works and the three single movements recorded here have been passed down complete and verified as authentic. The genesis of these works is closely linked to Mozart’s work as Kapellmeister at the Salzburg court, ending with the probably most important kick-out in music history. Mozart scored no solo cadenzas for his violin concertos; in the practice of the time, they were improvised. All the cadenzas on these recordings derive from Baiba Skride. Eivind Aadland writes: “Baiba is such an intuitive player. She has this rare quality of discovering the music as we play. So she never plays exactly the same. There is a wonderful sense of creating, discovering, of going finding new ways.“ Baiba Skride about her new album: “I know that there are so many different and super recordings of Mozart, but I think it is important to enjoy the music you have heard a thousand times and will hear a thousand times more with new eyes and simply allow the music to play.”

Germany’s oldest Mozart festival celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2021. The present jubilee boxed set presents previously unpublished treasures from the archive of the Bavarian Broadcasting. All live recordings from the Baroque Imperial Hall at Würzburg Residence are digital remasters.

Carl Seemann – The ORFEO recordings – Carl Seemann was the kind of pianist who didn’t try to impress audiences with brilliant virtuosity. Instead, he understood the piano as his ideal medium for revealing a polyphonic structure on a single instrument. After his death on November 26th, 1983, at the age of 73, in Freiburg, it took some 25 years before the recordings of his studio and concert performances began to be re(dis)covered and today he is once again regarded as one of the leading German pianists of the post-war era. On the occasion of his 40th year of death, ORFEO releases this 7 CD anniversary box with all his recordings on the label and an additional booklet that highlights Carl Seemann’s artistic background and his pianistic environment.

REVIEW:

Pianist Carl Seemann (1910-1983) largely specialized in the Viennese classics, and tended to shine more in collaborations than when under the solo spotlight.

His 1965 Bach Partitas, for example, range from workaday (Nos. 2 and 6) to sensitive and cultivated (No. 3 and No. 5’s outer movements). By contrast, his 1964 recital with frequent partner violinist Wolfgang Schneiderhan features congenial and inspired readings of the Bach E major, Beethoven E-flat Op. 12 No. 3, Mozart B-flat K. 454, and Schubert A major D. 574 sonatas.

The 1979 Mozart C major concerto K. 503 with the NDR Symphony Orchestra under Wilfried Boettcher is sluggish and heavy in the outer movements compared alongside Seemann’s 1950 DG studio recording, which wasn’t all that great to begin with. However, the 1972 E-flat K. 449 captures Seemann on fine form in a work he otherwise did not record. Here his energized and poetic solo work is complemented by Leopold Hager’s shapely orchestral framework.

Seemann’s boring and heavy-handed Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 2 precedes a stylishly flexible 1962 performance of that composer’s Sonata No. 9 in E major Op. 14 No. 1. The 1952 broadcast of Beethoven’s Bagatelles Op. 126 is basically a sonically drab replica of Seemann’s engaging, vibrant, and better engineered 1951 DG studio version. As I listened to cellist Enrico Mainardi’s 1956 Bach Viola da gamba Sonata in D major BWV 1028, I was struck by how the pianist’s tone seemed unusually mellifluous and nuanced. Then I looked at the booklet, and it turned out that the pianist was Carlo Zecchi, not Seemann! No wonder! Yet the real Carl Seemann holds more interest throughout a 1973 Reger Sonata No. 4 than Mainardi, who was way past his prime by that date.

The collection’s final disc focuses on Paul Hindemith conducting the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. They are not so polished as The Philharmonia Orchestra in Hindemith’s EMI recording of the Symphony for Concert Band, yet they bring more urgency and surface excitement to the fugal finale. The Bavarian musicians rise to the occasion in The Four Temperaments, where I prefer Clara Haskil’s limpid and sparkling fingerwork to pianist Hans Otte in Hindemith’s DG Berlin Philharmonic recording.

Considering that Berg’s Chamber Concerto was hardly a repertoire staple in 1955, Hindemith obtains impressive ensemble cohesion and discipline. Seemann handles the difficult piano part cleanly and securely, capably complementing violinist Wolfgang Marschner’s expressive agility. That said, Marschner comes more alive partnered alongside Paul Jacobs’ fleeter, more incisive pianism in a 1959 Köln Radio broadcast featuring Hermann Scherchen’s volatile podium presence.

At the very least I’m happy to have Seemann’s recital with Schneiderhan, his Mozart K. 449, and his more successful Bach Partita movements in my permanent collection, together with the Zecchi and Haskil selections. Christoph Schlüren’s annotations provide useful biographical information about Seemann and his career.

-- ClassicsToday.com (Jed Distler)

In a unique collaboration, Kirill Gerstein teams up with his mentor and inspiration, the great Hungarian pianist Ferenc Rados, for an album of four-hand duets by Mozart. An icon for generations of musicians but one who has mostly avoided making recordings, this fascinating disc reveals Rados’s distinctively characterful art at its captivating best and finds both partners in a stimulating musical conversation.

From the mid-seventeenth century onwards, the overture became an orchestral piece intended to precede a large-scale dramatic work. This recording brings together twelve overtures from Mozart’s operas. They foreshadow the action, sometimes stylistically, sometimes by quoting themes that will appear later, to create a dramatic impression before we even see anything on stage – think of the memorable overtures to Don Giovanni and Die Zauberflöte.

The twelve overtures brought together here cover 21 years of Mozart’s career: from Mithridate, composed when he was just 14, which testifies to the young composer’s familiarity with the galant style then in vogue, to La Clemenza di Tito (1791), the high point of his work in the opera seria genre that was to disappear with him, not forgetting masterpieces such as Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Le nozze di Figaro and Così fan tutte.

The Kölner Akademie, playing on period instruments, and its conductor Michael Alexander Willens demonstrate Mozart’s unrivalled ability to capture the audience’s attention with these brilliant overtures, some of which are among his most famous works, both on stage and in concert.

REVIEW:

The interpretations are very fresh, the playing virtuosic. The historical instruments provide a clear, crisp, and transparent sound, which is reproduced by the sound engineers with good spatiality and balance, with a clean and beautifully present bass.

-- Pizzicato

The Salzburg violinist Benjamin Schmid’s preoccupation with the violin works of W.A. Mozart has now lasted for more than four decades, was initially influenced by the then Mozarteum professors Sándor Végh and Nikolaus Harnoncourt, and received numerous awards as his style of interpretation became increasingly personalised. His first CD recording in 1990 with Mozart’s Violin Concertos Nos. 1 and 2 with the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg led by Hans Graf was also celebrated by reviewers as a discovery. 32 years and hundreds of performances later, Benjamin Schmid now completes his recordings of the violin concertos with the Sweden based Musica Vitae, of which he has been the musical director since last year, and describes his journey as follows: “As a violinist who grew up in Vienna and Salzburg, Mozart was ultimately always the most important composer for me; I defined this preference as early as elementary school age, and the interest grew with the discovery of the complete works of this probably at least most gifted of all composers. For me, the key to Mozart interpretation lies in the duality of singing and speaking; singing as immediate emotion and phrasing and articulation as form-giving grammar.”

Hardly any combination of instruments is more appealing than a string quartet and a clarinet; together they make a magical melange. The Hagen Quartet and Jörg Widmann have recorded Mozart's Clarinet Quintet, a 'work among friends', in this irresistible blend. Jörg Widmann, clarinettist and composer in equal measure, picks up on the omnipresent themes of 'floating, love, and chant' in Mozart's notes and creates a weighty counterpart to Mozart's popular work with his own clarinet quintet, which is available here in a world premiere recording.

This is the first recording of a new edition of the Mozart Requiem prepared by Michael Ostrzyga (Barenreiter). The performance features an international line-up of soloists from France, Germany, Switzerland and the UK. The inclusion of Mozart’s Ave verum corpus and the Exsultate, jubilate represents excellent value.

Nikolaus Harnoncourt is credited with making historical performance practice respectable in Salzburg as well. The memorable debut concert of 1980 was the prelude to a long success story that culminated in the Mozart Week 2006, when Nikolaus Harnoncourt was Artist in Residence and gave his acclaimed ceremonial address on 27 January on the occasion of the 250th birthday of Wolfgang Amadé Mozart. The inaugural concert and rehearsals from 2006 can be heard on this album.This 3-CD edition covers the era of Nikolaus Harnoncourt and his influence on the interpretation of the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Between 1980 and 2006, the conductor succeeded in sensitising both musicians and audiences to new playing and listening habits and evolved from a pioneer of historical performance practice to an acclaimed maestro.

When Nikolaus Harnoncourt made his debut at the Mozart Week Salzburg on 27 January 1980, concert audiences were at the feet of conductors like Karl Böhm. In those days, beautiful sound and melody were the central themes of an interpretation. Following instructions in the original scores, Harnoncourt had articulation, tempi, melodies and accompanying parts played with a new style and emphasis. The reactions to the concert in Salzburg at that time were varied. In addition to strong slurs, there were also effusive hymns of praise. 20 years later, Nikolaus Harnoncourt became Artist in Residence at the Mozart Week 2006 and was the keynote speaker on the occasion of the 250th birthday of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. In the meantime, his ideas of historical performance practice had spread worldwide and developed into the basis of a new generation of concerts and musicians. In this CD edition, his inaugural concert of 1980 is juxtaposed with rehearsal recordings from 2006. Both recordings provide fascinating insights into the intentions of the famous conductor.

Alon Goldstein and the Fine Arts Quartet present this fourth instalment in their acclaimed series of Mozart’s piano concertos arranged for piano and string quintet by Ignaz Lachner. The previous albums are available on 8.573398, 8.573736 and 8.574164.

Academy of Ancient Music (AAM) continues an acclaimed project to record Mozart’s complete works for keyboard and orchestra, with this eleventh volume of the series. Renowned pianists Robert Levin and Ya-Fei Chuang join Laurence Cummings and AAM to present Mozart’s Concertos Nos. 7 and 10, the former of which is recorded here in Mozart’s own arrangement for two pianos. Also included is the Concerto Movement for Piano, Violin, and Orchestra, completed by Robert Levin. This hardback CD package is accompanied by comprehensive notes commissioned specially for the album.

Mozart’s string quintets represent "some of his most sophisticated musical thinking … wonderful music, exhilarating to hear” (from the liner notes by Eric Bromberger). With this 3-CD set, the Alexander String Quartet and Paul Yarbrough complete their Mozart compendium.

Mozart wrote only one actual sonata for two pianos. Mozart By Arrangement is the first instalment of six sparkling new Mozart two-piano sonatas. Violinist and conductor Andrew Manze once observed that the frequent concerto-like writing in Mozart's op. 2 (1781) sonatas for violin and piano might make them effective piano duets. The Australian composer Stephen Yates has taken him up on the idea, adding these delightful new works to the two-piano repertoire.

REVIEW:

These transcriptions by British composer Stephen Yates were inspired by none other than one of the world’s foremost interpreters of the original works, violinist Andrew Manze, who suggested that the violin music could effectively be reimagined as piano music. I was dubious of the concept in practice, owing to my supreme respect—wonderment, really—of Mozart’s intuitive sense of instrumental timbre and dramatic intent. Clearly, Manze has better intuition on this matter than do I (no surprise!), because this is a completely charming production. Here is yet another enchanting and novel release from Toccata Classics, an indispensable label for all true piano lovers.

-- Fanfare