Johann Jeremias Du Grain was on familiar terms with the musical greats of his era. He learned the musical trade from Telemann, who was already famous at the time, and he assisted the very busy Handel with the composition of a festive cantata for the five hundredth anniversary of Elbing, his chosen place of residence. One hears traces of these illustrious surroundings in Du Grain’s own cantatas, which Anrzej Szadejko and the Goldberg Baroque Ensemble are now presenting for the first time on this audiophile multichannel release in the Musica Baltica series. Du Grain’s cantatas not only represent the very best of their times, they are also extraordinarily appealing. Virtuoso arias, splendid choral numbers, and highly expressive laments operate on the same high level as the music of the great masters. On the First Day of Christmas, full Baroque splendor awaits the Savior when timpani and trumpets open “Willkommen, Erloser” with a salutation befitting the deliverer of the world. Du Grain displays very great artistry in the elaboration of Luther’s challenging medieval chorale “Mitten wir im Leben sind.” This extensive fifteen part work explores all the facets of human life and death- now that is unique!

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

Since Milos Forman’s film “Amadeus” at the very latest, legends and conspiracy theories have been known to one and all. Salieri’s artistic quality has been overshadowed, but he did indeed contribute significantly to the glory of the Viennese opera.

Mozart had to exert himself, and he did so with success. For the Viennese production of his Idomeneo, which he composed during his Munich residence just prior to moving to the Austrian capital, he reworked some parts of it and added new music.

Douglas Boyd teases colors of the greatest tenderness out of his orchestra in the “Six Ländler Dances” from the last years of Mozart’s life, and on this lovingly produced double SACD they shine in all their great splendor. Optimally of course in 3-D technology – a festive gala for home listening!

Classical Music

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

MOZART Piano Concertos: No. 12 in A , K 414 ; No. 26 in D, K 537 • Christian Zacharias (pn, cond); Lausanne C O • MDG GOLD 940 1759-6 (54:20)


This release, Volume 9 in Christian Zacharias’s ongoing cycle of the Mozart piano concertos, is wonderfully satisfying in every way. I can’t imagine that anyone could find any fault with his natural-sounding piano playing, the clear, sweet sound of the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, the spacious, clear recorded sound, or, of course, the music itself.


The 12th concerto is an early example of the special grace and intimate expression found in Mozart’s other notable works in A Major: the 23rd concerto, the quintet and concerto for clarinet. The untroubled, celebratory 26th concerto, usually referred to as the “Coronation”, though not here, is sometimes regarded as a less profound work than the other late Mozart concertos, but it has always been a favorite of mine. Zacharias’s wonderful phrasing, glorious ornamentation, and profound understanding of the nuances of Mozart’s keyboard style now make this my favorite performance of the piece, displacing Murray Perahia’s fine account. (I won’t give away a delightful timbral surprise that happens in the cadenza of the first movement.) In general, MDG’s recording adds some resonance to the sound of the piano, with the orchestra providing a sonic foil that’s crisp by comparison, a very pleasing overall balance.


If the other volumes in this series are comparably excellent—and Scott Noriega’s review of the 24th and 25th concertos in 36:1 indicates that they are—then Zacharias’s Mozart cycle may surpass the very best ones that use the modern piano and simply qualify as a life-enhancing event.


FANFARE: Paul Orgel

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

Both concertos on this volume are from 1786: Mozart composed KV 491 in C minor in great haste on 24 March while he was working on the opera Figaro, and KV 503 in C major followed on 4 December while he was writing the Prague Symphony. Christian Zacharias and his Lausanne Chamber Orchestra have allowed themselves considerably more time – and with splendid results. This complete recording already promises to claim one of the top places on the international charts; after all, Zacharias again and again effortlessly succeeds in conveying his inimitable interpretive culture to the orchestra.

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MOZART Piano Concertos: No. 24; No. 25 • Christian Zacharias (pn, cond); Lausanne CO • MDG GOLD 940 1737 (SACD: 61:22)


Some of Mozart’s piano concertos have been popular ever since they were first written. Indeed the next generation of composers following Mozart held them (that is especially the late concertos, and within this group especially the minor-keyed ones) in high esteem along with the last three of Beethoven’s. Mendelssohn is known to have loved the D-Minor Concerto, playing it often and including his own improvised cadenzas during performances. In the current recording, Christian Zacharias, a German pianist who has won numerous prizes—including first in the Geneva, the Van Cliburn, and the Ravel competitions in the early to mid 1970s—has almost completed the monumental task of recording all of Mozart’s concertos; if all of the other releases in this series have been as revealing as this one, then we are in store for one of the finer overall sets of these compositions.


Though the two concertos on the current recording often get paired for obvious reasons of numbering alone, Zacharias plays them as though they were two completely different species in a related genre. In his hands the C-Minor Concerto, K 491, sounds more like an orchestrated chamber work, one in which each orchestral part is balanced with both the piano and with the other instruments of the orchestra. The pianist maintains a light touch here, allowing the other instruments of the orchestra to take the fore when necessary; the piano is not always the most important instrument in the ensemble and Zacharias is sensitive to this. The winds, for example, especially notable in this concerto, do not merely accompany the strings or the piano adding some splashes of color here and there; in this reading they are an integral part of the whole structure of the work. Even the most overtly soloist-oriented section in the entire composition is infused with a sense of chamber music. The first-movement cadenza, normally used as a vehicle for the pianist’s virtuosity, is here used as a section of exploration and reminiscence by both the pianist and the orchestra—an oddity for sure, but a successful one. The later C-Major Concerto, K 503, is treated far differently from its predecessor. Though the pianist is just as sensitive here to his given role at any time, this concerto is seen symphonically—it is a big-boned concerto and the pianist is not afraid to highlight the boisterousness and joyfulness of this concerto through its many playful and virtuosic passages; its seeming simplicities are its delights. In addition to Zacharias’s extraordinary playing and fine conducting, much of the credit must go to his ensemble of choice: the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra. The members of the orchestra do not merely play along with their soloist, they read the nuances of the soloist and comment accordingly. This small orchestra proves to be a very fine Mozart ensemble.


This is overall exquisite playing, expressive yet never over-romanticized, always period-informed yet never inhibited by that awareness. In addition to the brilliant performances, the sound of the recording must also be commented upon: It is superb. The multichannel recording adds a spaciousness, a depth to the sound that makes one feel, when one closes one’s eyes, that one is literally in the concert hall listening in on this intimate music-making. If one is looking for a new Mozart concerto cycle this would be it for me. If all of the previous releases are as fine as this one, this would indeed set a new standard. In other words, get it and enjoy!


FANFARE: Scott Noriega

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

MOZART Piano Concertos: Nos. 6, 13, 16 • Christian Zacharias (pn, cond); Lausanne Co • MDG GOLD 1667 (SACD: 67:07)


This is Volume 7 in what is apparently going to be a complete set of the Mozart piano concertos by Christian Zacharias. I asked to review it because I was so impressed by his performances of the five Beethoven concertos with Armin Jordan conducting (Cascavelle 3118), in which Zacharias’s enlivened inflections of phrase and rhythmic acuity were combined with original and highly imaginative cadenzas that acted within the concertos like mini-fantasias.


I am not at all disappointed by his solo playing here, which is crisp yet lighter in tone than his Beethoven, which is wholly appropriate for Mozart. The problem, to me, is his conducting and the overall performance and sound quality of the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra. Its playing is “soft” both in phrasing and attack, coming across almost as background or elevator music. This was the kind of Mozart sound in vogue during the late 1970s and early ’80s, before the historically informed crowd moved in to show us that such earlier conductors as Toscanini, Furtwängler, Doráti, and Markevitch had it right, that unlike Haydn, whose music sounds good at a slightly relaxed pace and with a wide dynamic range, Mozart tends toward sameness and boredom when given that approach. Mozart needs to be performed with a combination of emotional commitment and sharply etched contours, as in the performances of Harnoncourt, Norrington, Pinnock, and others. In the case of the piano concertos, one can scarcely imagine or achieve finer performances than those of the entire series recorded by fortepianist Jos van Immerseel and Anima Eterna on Canal Grande 8016.


Of course, there are listeners who are much in favor of this particular style of Mozart performance. I myself was one of them in the early 1980s, when I became a fan of Murray Perahia’s then-groundbreaking series of Mozart concertos. For them, then, this disc and its six other counterparts issued so far will make quite satisfying listening. The hybrid multichannel sound is warm and round, which again de-emphasizes the music’s edge.


FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.
Personnel: Christian Zacharias (piano).
Recording information: Métropole Lausanne (06/25/2008-06/28/2008).

"We have now reached Volume 5 of MDG’s estimable series of Mozart piano concertos with Christian Zacharias, the first such SACD series to my knowledge and a highly worthy effort... Zacharias’s articulation is spectacular in these pieces, just the right amount of separation between the notes in the faster passages, and an almost organ-like style of playing that allows the melodies to truly soar with a seamless and unobtrusive melisma. The sound is fabulous, the best on any Mozart concerto series so far, and is recommendable without hesitation." -- Steven Ritter, Audiophile Audition

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

Also available in standard Stereo.



MOZART Piano Concertos: No. 19 in F; No. 20 in d • Christian Zacharias (pn, cond); Lausanne CO • MDG 940 1529 (Hybrid multichannel SACD 57:17)


This CD can be deeply admired on a number of levels. Zacharias is a supremely elegant pianist, ideal for Mozart in so many ways. He feels the pulse naturally, finding rhythmic subtlety in a way that underlies the theatrical sense of the music, and his precision and pearly tonality are a delight to the ear. He also demonstrates the real artistic virtue of being both the orchestral conductor and soloist in the Mozart concertos. There is, when it is done at the high level that is achieved here, a chamber-music-like intimacy that is much harder to manage when there are two strong personalities involved. The magnificent, bewitching timbral blending that belongs to Mozart alone is heard with much greater presence this way. As the icing on the cake, there is the superb recorded sound achieved by MDG producer Werner Dabringhaus, one of the best in the business.


Yes, Virginia, there is a caveat. All of the qualities described above lead to a heavenly account of the F-Major Concerto, separated by a mere two months from one of Mozart’s darkest works, the D-Minor Concerto. In that music, despite a general excellence in execution, Zacharias shows just enough emotional reticence, as evinced in too little dynamic contrast and a lack of the last degree of urgency in the stormier passages to keep this reading out of the first tier. I’m not suggesting that a pianist needs to tear up the keyboard; it is possible to combine elegance and fire, as do Uchida, Brendel, and Pletnev, or among great older recordings, Schnabel, Kempff, or Michelangeli. On the other hand, I can easily imagine other listeners preferring the cooler style of Zacharias, which handily conveys the spirit of the music. This is, without a doubt, a very beautiful Mozart disc, part of an ongoing series that deserves the highest attention, especially to those who can live without a growl in this music.


FANFARE: Peter Burwasser

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

Will listeners raised on virtuoso performances of Mozart's piano concertos be able to make room in the hearts for Christian Zacharias' recordings with the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne? It depends on how willing they are to forego the pleasures of virtuosity for the pleasures music-making. This is not to say that Zacharias isn't a virtuoso pianist. As his twenty years of recordings make very clear, he has talents and abilities far beyond those of most mortal pianists. But it is to say that, as those recordings make equally clear, Zacharias is far more interested in music-making than he is in virtuosity. As both pianist and conductor here, Zacharias leads performances which are all about sympathetic interplay, about musicians listening to each other, about the meaning behind the notes and the joy inside the notes. The Lausanne musicians respond joyfully to Zacharias' direction, playing with him and not for him and breathing life into every line and sonority. While listeners raised on virtuoso performances may find something lacking, those listeners who value playing together more than showing off will find much to enjoy.

Musikproduktion Dabringhaus und Grimm's sound is ideally balanced between detail and depth and between immediacy and atmosphere, thereby providing an aural image of a real pianist with a real orchestra in a real place in real time.

- James Leonard, AllMusic Guide

Includes work(s) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Soloist: Siegbert Rampe.

As with this series' previous nine volumes, Siegbert Rampe programs familiar and obscure Mozart keyboard music in interesting juxtapositions, dividing the works among clavichord, harpsichord, and fortepiano. Those who've followed Rampe's Mozart up to this point will not be surprised to find the keyboardist going hog wild with ornaments and embellishments upon repeats, especially on the clavichord. Listen, for example, to the K. 279 C major sonata's outer movements, where percussive noises accompany note attacks as if a flamenco dancer had sneaked into the recording studio, together with the funkiest pitch bending I've heard since the Mini-Moog's heyday.

On fortepiano, Rampe's affetuoso inflections sound a bit "much" in the K. 353 variations, yet judicious timing and fluidity characterize his expressive flexibility in the B minor Adagio. Rampe saves his (relatively) straightest interpretations for the harpsichord, bringing welcome vigor and rhythmic pomp to the youthful K. 11 sonata, the D major Clavierstück, and the K. 460 variations fragment. The sonics lack impact and detail, but still convey what these instruments sound like in a small venue.

--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com