Mozart: Piano Sonatas Nos. 11 and 14 / Fantasia in C Minor

To make Mozart’s Piano Concertos K. 466 and K. 467 more accessible to the public, the 19th c. composer Ignaz Lachner left the piano parts untouched and made splendid string quartet transcriptions of the orchestra parts with added bass. These chamber versions of two of Mozart’s greatest and most popular concertos sound almost as natural as if Mozart had transcribed them himself. Admired for his musical intelligence, dynamic personality, artistic vision and innovative programming, the NY Times called out pianist Alon Goldstein’s “brilliance and imagination” following a recent live recital.

Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos. 20 and 21

MOZART: Overtures

MOZART: Oboe Quartet, K. 370 / Horn Quintet, K. 407 / A Musi

During his years in Salzburg, Mozart wrote a series of shorter mass settings, for which he drew on the models of his senior colleague Michael Haydn. Regina coeli reveals his supreme skill at writing for the solo voice. The Missa brevis in D, K 194 is a work of great solemnity, employing a remarkable range of expressive contrasts, whilst the Missa brevis in B flat, K 275 is notable for its sublime lyricism and grace. The Allegro and Andante in F minor, K 608 is regarded as Mozart’s finest work for the organ and and has become one of the cornerstones of the organ repertory.

R E V I E W S:

"This is a thoroughly recommendable collection of sacred choral music… The performance is excellent, relaxed and easygoing, with no attempt to add extra weight or drama where it is not required. Elizabeth Cragg takes her solo role with great skill and sensitivity. This is a lovely performance of the D major Missa brevis too…the overall mood, in line with the nature of the work, is relaxed and genial. With an excellent quartet of soloists and expert playing from the period instrument group Sinfonia Verdi, it remains only to hand out plaudits to the choir, which is clearly in excellent shape under Lucas’s direction."
© 2013 International Record Review

"…on this evidence the choral tradition at St Albans is in rude health, the tone consistent and untiring. The soloists blend well, with Elizabeth Cragg coming to the fore in an early setting of the Marian antiphon Regina coeli; and Tom Winpenny provides contrast in the much later F minor organ Fantasia, played with élan on the cathedral’s 1962 Harrison."
© 2013 Gramophone

MOZART Piano Trios: Nos. 4–6; in D, K 442 (compl. Stadler) • Kungsbacka Pn Tr • NAXOS 8.570519 (76: 42)


This may well be the shortest entry I’ve ever submitted; for assuming that my review of Volume 1 of the Kungsbacka’s Mozart piano trios appeared in the 32:5 issue, there’s little to add. The current Volume 2 completes this ensemble’s run of Mozart’s six official trios for violin, cello, and piano, filling out the disc with an additional three-movement trio cobbled together by the Abbé Maximilian Stadler from fragmentary odds and ends that were probably intended for other pieces.


To restate what I said in my previous review, “The Kungsbacka Trio is a modern-instruments ensemble, but it plays stylishly and tastefully. Translation: articulation is crisp, vibrato is minimal, tempos are spirited in allegro movements and forward moving in andante movements, open strings are not avoided, and first movement exposition repeats are taken. For those who don’t already have one or more versions of these trios in their collections and/or who are not uncompromising advocates for period instruments, the Kungsbacka Trio can be recommended for very fine playing, and Naxos’s recording, at a price that can’t be beat, is excellent.”


Now that this cycle is complete, it definitely vies for equal favor with other preferred versions by the Florestan, Parnassus, and Gryphon Trios. And at budget price, it possibly edges them out slightly. Strongly recommended.


FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

MOZART: German Dances

Classical Music

I have to confess, I seldom listen to these pieces. Not because everyone agrees that they aren't "great" Mozart, but because most performances usually fall into one of two equally loathsome categories, which for convenience we may call Flutezilla vs. The Antiques Road Show. First, there is Flutezilla--the ego-boosting display of some star soloist who simply must record these concertos because Mozart wrote them and, let's face it, no other great composer between the Baroque period and the 20th century cared enough about the flute to even attempt to compose anything similarly worth playing. These productions usually feature the soloist blasting away on an instrument over-miked to the point where, regarding balance with the orchestra, it offers the aural equivalent of Godzilla stomping on teeny tiny Tokyo--"Tokyo" in this case being represented by a bargain-basement ensemble (I Solisti di Fresno, perhaps?) usually bored out of its mind, led by a no-talent, no-name conductor for whom excitement means having everyone start and end more or less at the same time (never mind what happens along the way). More than a few great flutists have thus been defeated by these lovely, unassuming works when played and recorded in such a fashion.


Then there's The Antiques Road Show. This more recent, second batch of vile recordings comes from those terribly earnest period-instrument folks. Here it's the flutist who's usually the one with no name and no talent, as well as no timbre and no intonation, playing some "authentically replicated copy" of an 18th-century wooden atrocity impressively designated as a "flauto traverso" or some such--as if it makes one iota of difference if the player blows the ghastly thing sideways, front-ways, backwards, upside down, or under water. Any way you slice it, the instrument sounds like a whistling tea-kettle in distress, with far more hiss of escaping air than musical tone. But in this case, the soloist has the backing of some "très à la mode" period-instrument pick-up band attacking the music with a sadistically ferocious ideological fervor more appropriate to the Manson family or the Symbionese Liberation Army than to a proper chamber orchestra. Naturally the soloist doesn't stand a chance, and given the appalling quality of the instrument in question, this probably is a good thing when all is said and done.


All of which is a long way of saying that I have no hesitation in declaring this to be the finest recording of Mozart's flute concertos currently available, and believe me, I've suffered through most of them. It has everything: a first rate soloist, a marvelous orchestra obviously mindful of period practice but playing modern instruments, an intelligently added harpsichord continuo (especially wonderful as a foil to the timbre of the harp), and boundless enthusiasm from all concerned. It's captured by Naxos in excellently balanced, warm, pellucidly clear sound. All it takes is about 10 seconds' listening to any single movement in any of these three works to make the outstanding quality of the musicianship self evident. The Swedish Chamber Orchestra launches the opening Allegro aperto of the Second Concerto (wisely placed first on the disc) with infectious rhythmic drive, and from the moment of Patrick Gallois' joyous, chirping entrance the performance flies by like a force of nature.


Listen to how characterfully the horn and oboe parts contribute to the opening tutti of the Concerto for Flute and Harp, and to the lively and luscious interplay between harpist Fabrice Pierre and Gallois throughout their many exchanges over the course of the movement. Taut rhythms and vivid accents keep the ear consistently engaged from first note to last. The long central Adagio of the First concerto is so beautiful that you easily could enjoy it for another nine minutes, and Gallois' cadenzas in all three works never outstay their welcome, being as fresh and pithy as Mozart's own music. No praise could be higher than to note how, in the same concerto's concluding Tempo di Menuetto, so often a dreary chore in other performances, Gallois & Cie manage to find a tempo both stately, as befits a minuet, but also energetically forward-moving, as befits a concerto finale. Really there's no reason to own any other version of this music, particularly given Naxos' budget price. As for the recording(s) already in your collection, they'll make a classy set of coasters. [11/15/2003]
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

The last ten years of Mozart' life, spent in Vienna, coincided with the growing development and popularity of the clarinet. In particular, Mozart found inspiration in the playing of the Stadler brothers, resulting in his Clarinet Concerto.

It's great to see this work, incomparably the most magnificent string trio ever written, getting increasing attention on disc. We recently welcomed a splendid new recording on BIS, and now here's another, equally fine. It seems that the music brings out the best in its performers, as well it must. Anyone attempting a nearly 50-minute-long string trio had better have the chops to carry it off. Perhaps the outstanding quality of this performance is its rhythmic thrust, combined with the ability of the players to characterize their musical lines in an independent but still effectively coordinated way.

I'm thinking in particular of cellist Christoph Richter's delightful, swooping comments at the end of the first-movement exposition, the almost "parlante" phrasing of the finale's principal rondo theme, and the generously lyrical phrasing of the grand second-movement Adagio. In music bursting with some of Mozart's catchiest tunes, there's never a moment that turns dull or static in this performance, and the sonics let the music breathe in a warm but ideally intimate setting. You really can't have too many versions of this piece, one of the glories of the chamber music literature. Let this be one of them.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

MOZART Divertimenti: No. 11 in D, K 251; No. 17 in D, K 334 • Helmut Müller-Brühl, cond; Cologne CO • NAXOS 8.570990 (73:49)

Helmut Müller-Brühl remained active until shortly before his death in January 2012. These Mozart divertimenti, recorded in mid-September 2011 may well be the last recordings he made. His legacy—mainly in baroque and early classical repertoire, from the days of LP on Nonesuch and, if I’m not mistaken, on Turnabout and the Musical Heritage Society, all the way up to practically the present day, primarily on Naxos—is a long and distinguished one. Yet for all his many fine recordings of composers who were near contemporaries of Mozart, such as the two Haydns, Josef and Michael, Franz Anton Hoffmeister, and Ignace Pleyel, Müller-Brühl seems not to have committed much Mozart to disc. That makes this new Naxos release of the conductor leading two of Mozart’s divertimenti especially welcome.

As a musical genre, the divertimento is but one member in a family of interbreeds that included the serenade, cassation, and notturno. All shared a common origin and purpose in music that was intended to entertain guests and lubricate the gossip at various social gatherings and functions. A modern-day equivalent might be the string quartet hired to play in the background at a garden party. Everyone hears it and knows it’s there, but no one really listens or pays much attention to it. The serenade was typically performed outdoors. The notturno, as its name implies, was an after-dinner evening piece, possibly played on a balcony or veranda. The meaning of cassation is unclear, but Mozart often referred to his divertimenti as such, the term, possibly being derived from the German, Gasse , and suggesting street or alley music.

There was no fixed form or number of movements to any of these pieces, but in the hands of Mozart, not only did some of his serenades and divertimenti take on a much more serious tone, they rendered the distinctions between these composition types even more meaningless than they already were. You have, for example, Mozart’s great Divertimento in E?-Major for violin, viola, and cello, K 563, which, if not for the fact that it’s in six movements, would probably have been cataloged as a string trio. Then there’s the Serenata notturna , K 239, a work in three movements for double string orchestra and timpani, which seems to elude classification and which may be why Mozart’s father, Leopold, put this hybrid title to the manuscript. In order of composition, Mozart’s next serenade is the “Haffner,” K 250, a big, celebratory score in eight movements, written for his sister’s prenuptial festivities. Three of its movements feature a violin soloist, partially lending the work the feeling of a concerto. And then, of course, there’s the serious side of Mozart’s serenading, the “Gran Partita” Serenade, K 361/370a, a score in seven movements for 12 wind instruments plus string bass.

Gradually, it seems that both serenade and divertimento more or less merged into an entity that settled on six movements containing two minuets and, in many cases, an opening march that was reprised in the concluding movement. The musical content, however, still varied widely from light, even frivolous, entertainment fare to weightier, more serious matter.

The two divertimentos on this disc both exhibit the above-mentioned six-movement layout with two minuets, but K 251 is of the lighter, amusement type, containing a rondeau movement and ending with a march. And while it’s hardly a trifle at nearly 26 minutes in length, it’s dwarfed by the more serious-minded K 334, which is almost twice as long at 48 minutes and much more thoroughly worked out. The contrasts in length, placement of movements, and musical content between these two works are evidence of how loosely—or freely, if you prefer—these types of compositions were titled and categorized.

Apart from the later Musical Joke , K 522, and the previously mentioned String Trio, K 563, the D-Major Divertimento, K 334, of 1779–1780 is the last of Mozart’s scores to bear the title “Divertimento.” It’s also the most extended and formally developed. Yet surprisingly, perhaps, is that it’s more modest in terms of orchestral scoring than the earlier D-Major Divertimento on the disc, calling for only two horns and strings. K 251, dated 1776, adds an oboe to the ensemble.

Helmut Müller-Brühl and the Cologne Chamber Orchestra were made to play this music. Not even the most steadfast devotee of period-instrument performance could fail to be delighted by these performances. The Allegro s bubble and bustle with high spirits, while the slower movements capture the music’s sweetness, charm, and grace without surrendering to cloying sentimentality.

While Müller-Brühl may not have been one of the earliest pioneers in the historical performance movement, not all readers may know that for 10 years, from 1976 to 1986, the Cologne Chamber Orchestra he led also played and recorded on period instruments under the name Capella Clementina, and thus, both conductor and orchestra members gained inestimable experience in period practice which they applied to their post-1986 performances on modern instruments. This recording is a fruit of that familiarity with and understanding of Classical period performance practice and style.

Recent recordings of these works on modern instruments are not plentiful. In fact, unless one goes back to the mid 1980s and to Marriner’s five-disc Philips collection of the divertimenti with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, or to the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra’s four-disc Deutsche Grammophon serenades and divertimenti collection, which doesn’t include K 334, there aren’t that many more recent modern instrument versions to choose from. No matter; for these performances by Müller-Brühl and the Cologne Chamber Orchestra are spot-on, and at Naxos’s budget price, practically a steal. Very strongly recommended.

FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

MOZART: Divertimenti, K. 131 and K. 287

MOZART Davide penitente. Regina coeli • Morten Schuldt-Jensen, cond; Trine Wilsberg Lund (sop); Kristina Wahlin (sop); Lothar Odinius (ten); Immortal Bach Ens; Leipzig CO • NAXOS 8.570231 (53:05)


In the spring of 1785, Mozart sought membership in the Tonkünstlersocietät or Composers’ Society, a Viennese charitable organization that supported the widows and orphans of composers. The Society responded to Mozart’s interest with a request for a new work to feature in their upcoming concerts. Pressed for time and already obligated to fulfill a number of other composing and performing commitments, Mozart was forced to recycle a liturgical work that had first been given in Salzburg two years earlier. Thus the C-Minor Mass, K 427, was recast to accommodate an Italian text (possibly by da Ponte) and, with two additional arias, first performed at the Composers’ Society concerts on March 13 and 15, 1785, in the National Theatre of the Hofburg. Two members of the original cast of Abduction from the Seraglio were among the soloists.


Davide penitente thus represents something of a hybrid, accorded a vivid and polished performance here under the direction of Morten Schuldt-Jensen. Trine Wilsberg Lund, Kristina Wahlin, and Lothar Odinius handle Mozart’s florid arias and ensembles with true distinction. The Immortal Bach Ensemble’s sound in the choral movements is rich and well blended. Enunciation, on the other hand, is occasionally less than perfectly clear, possibly a function of the infelicitous superimposition of an Italian text over music conceived for the Latin Ordinary of the Mass. The accompaniments of the Leipziger Kammerorchester are tactful, supportive, and feature some exquisite wind-playing. Another fine performance of Davide penitente is available (Deutche Harmonia Mundi 277045) by Sigiswald Kuijken with La Petite Bande and the Netherlands Chamber Choir.


The recording, made in the Leipzig Gewandhaus during the spring of 2006, is technically satisfying in all respects. Keith Anderson’s notes are characteristically fluent and informative.


FANFARE: Patrick Rucker