The premiere of Mozart’s Quintet for piano and winds must have been a shock and at the same time a delight for the audience of...

The premiere of Mozart’s Quintet for piano and winds must have been a shock and at the same time a delight for the audience of the 18th century. The immense richness of colors and sounds were entirely unusual. Mozart had been searching for new challenges and was rewarded. After the premier on April 1st, 1784 Mozart has written to his father: "I myself consider it to be the best thing I have written in my life." Mozart celebrated one of the greatest triumphs of his career. For the first time the near-orchestral rich sonorities, the masterful harmony and the continuing and vigorous dialogue of the oboe, clarinet, horn and bassoon in relation to the piano was heard. Only thirteen years later Beethoven used the same unusual combination of instruments. His quintet for piano and winds was also premiered in Vienna on April 6, 1797. Both artists chose to compose for an entire unique and by that date unknown instrumentation and each had his own musical approach. Under the group name "Die Freitagsakademie" Katharina Suske gathered some of the finest international artists: Edoardo Torbianelli, Katharina Suske, Pierre-André Taillard, Olivier Darbellay and Lyndon Watt. These five musicians, each with their own unique character, blend together and reciprocally influence each other to create a single flowing sound body and impresses with their entirely new, dynamic interpretation. The unusual instrumentation is recorded in an exceptional way using just one special microphone to capture the beauty of this unique sound experience, the high art of the Wiener Klassik.