It is well-known that musicians very often sit in a circle in Tacet’s recordings. With this layout, they don't just hear each other, they can also see each other. This means that the musical exchanges between the musicians are simpler and better. And it is easier to achieve a natural-sounding recording, not only in Tacet Real SS but also in stereo. But is it even possible for an orchestral recording? And without a conductor? We were intrigued by the question and so decided to pursue it. The answer? It does indeed work - in fact very well! At the very least, a layout like this expresses the equality of all the participants. The Netherlands Chamber Orchestra puts down a spicy performance of two of Mozart's bubbliest symphonies: the "Prague" and the "Linz". The musicians of the NPhO and to Gordan Nikolic took on this successful venture with great enthusiasm, and the result pays dividends!

Most of Suitner’s Mozart recordings with the Dresden Staatskapelle were made after his time as conductor there had come to an end, in the summer of 1964, when he moved to direct the State Opera in Berlin, where he was offered better working conditions. “I have been in charge of many recordings, and the execution was seldom so smooth. It was all so relaxed and easy-going. We always felt the joy of music-making,” producer Heinz Wegner remembers. At the same time, Suitner’s Mozart was stylistically anything but arbitrary: “He naturally had a concept and he knew how to implement it, so that his interpretations – as if influenced by some enigmatic powers – always generated a specially ‘natural’ listening experience. I never experienced that in Mozart with any other conductor.” Otmar Suitner’s great success as Principal Conductor of the Staatskapelle Dresden remains a fascinating phenomenon to this day. That said, the cultural, political and economic work environment of this orchestra, so steeped in tradition, was far from auspicious, which meant that the qualities of the new man on the rostrum and his musicians faced more than the usual challenges. Seldom has a young conductor fulfilled expectations of him in such a brilliant manner. When, in 1960 at just 38 years of age, he took up his new post, few people would have believed that fifty years later memories would still regularly be re-awakened of his Mozart recordings. Producer Heinz Wegner explains: “What we hear on this recording seemed to emerge as if by magic. When he conducted Mozart, something seemed to happen to the music to the extent that it just seemed he had captured the quintessence of the composer.”

Classical Music

Classical Music

This album made the headlines in 2006 as the UK’s first classical “on the night” recording. CDs were made during the second part of the concert for the audience to take home after the concert. This is the first time this CD has been commercially released.

Symphonies 39 & 41 are among the last composed by Mozart. They use the full eighteenth-century orchestra, complete with trumpets and timpani.

Symphony 39 (K543) shows Mozart at his most exalted in the orchestral passages, while some passages remain intimate and touching, with more delicate themes. The Minuet features the orchestra’s guest artists, the clarinets, in a waltz-like Trio.

The “Jupiter”, Mozart’s final symphony (no 41, K551), belongs to a sequence of grand ceremonial works in C major. Typically for Mozart it juxtaposes a number of different contrasting musical characters and ideas, from the formal and aristocratic to the heartfelt and soulful.

In the finale, the composer’s compositional virtuosity is on display. Through the whole runs an extraordinary spirit, a mixture of intellectual excitement, the feeling of a grand design, and a sense of fun.

As the predecessors of Sony Classical, CBS Masterworks had not a catalogue of "authenticity-minded" recordings (the pioneering efforts of Raymond Leppard and Jean-Claude Malgoire notwithstanding), Sony made a distinctive new start and engaged indubitably one of the most experienced producers in the field of early music, Wolf Erichson. If the successes secured by such musicians as Gustav Leonhardt, Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Frans Brüggen in the 1960s were the most visible signs to a wider audience of thorough-going change in the interpretation of music from medieval to baroque times, there was no doubt in assigning a part of the general success to the work of the production teams behind the recordings. Wolf Erichson was involved in producing recordings for many artists through his work for Das Alte Werk series. Success followed him since the early 1970s, when he founded the SEON production company. Later, Sony Classical’s SEON line brought the pioneers of period intruments and vocal performances such as Frans Brüggen, Amer Bylsma, the Kuijkens, Gustav Leonhardt, and Konrad Ruhland on the international market at a budget price. Recordings made on SEON enjoyed both popular and critical acclaim. Later, producer Wolf Erichson, supervised Sony's VIVARTE label, which was a label devoted solely to producing historical music using modern recording technologies. Music critic Tom Manoff said these digital recordings of the VIVARTE series are among the best he has ever heard. The upcoming VIVARTE collector’s boxed sets feature attractive repertoire selection out of the legendary catalogue of ancient music. The CDs appear in their original coupling and cover at a special price. Some VIVARTE sets also include selected recordings from the SEON catalogue to round up the collections of selected titles.

For over four decades, the Chilingirian String Quartet has thrilled critics and audiences around the world with it's vibrant, virtuosic performances of classical and contemporary chamber music. The Quartet has a sound that is both powerful and precise - richly interpretive yet always true to the composer's vision. Yuko Inoue is a Japanese violinist who studied at Kunitachi College of Music then went on to study with several famous violinists. She is currently a professor at the Royal Academy of Music.

Mozart: String Quintets, K. 593 & K. 614

MOZART: String Quintets, K. 174 and K. 515

MOZART: String Quartets, K. 136-138 and K. 465, 'Dissonance'

This release is intended to forge a link between Mozart's chamber music and operas. It combines a divertimento by the young Mozart of 1772 with two mature quartets composed around 1782. The young quartet showcasing these works is Quatuor Van Kuijk, who has already become an international prize-winner in their short lifespan. Nowhere else in Mozart's quartets do theatre and counterpoint form such a happy pairing. Praised by The Guardian for its "style, energy and a sense of risk."

MOZART: String Quartets, K. 156, K. 158-159 and K. 458

Classical Music

Classical Music

MOZART: String Quartets, K. 499, 'Hoffmeister' and K. 590, '