While Kiri Te Kanawa was still preparing for that career-defining debut as the Countess, she made a first Mozart disc under Colin Davis: a collection of sacred music, including the Solemn Vespers, KV 339, with its serene setting of ‘Laudate Dominum’, and Exsultate, jubilate. The Countess became the singer’s calling-card, and she repeated the role […]
No composer wrote better for wind instruments than Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and it is our good fortune that most of his output in this sphere has survived to delight us. Many of these recordings feature legendary soloists and conductors with the London Symphony Orchestra. The Belgian player Henri Helaerts (1907–2001) was principal of the Orchestre […]
Julius Katchen recorded two Mozart piano concertos with Peter Maag and they both appear on this CD, together with the Six German Dances, KV 509 – ‘a magnificent example of the power of a genuinely charismatic conductor’ as Tully Potter notes in his liner notes. Katchen first entered Decca’s London studios in 1947 and was […]
Friedrich Gulda has become something of a cult figure in the music world. This 2CD set presents him in Mozart recordings – both concertos and solo works – largely for Decca, with one item, the Piano Concerto No. 17, recorded for Amadeo. Born in Vienna in 1930, Gulda began formal lessons aged seven with Felix […]
The Pro Arte Piano Quartet was made up of leading London-based instrumentalists, many of whom also played in the Melos Ensemble of London. Pianist Lamar Crowson was, and remains, one of the great chamber music pianists of all time (and a soloist in his own right). Kenneth Sillito led, for several years, the Academy of […]
One of the most peerless Mozartians of our time, Felicity Lott, has been one of the foremost sopranos to essay the composer’s major roles in the opera house. Complementing these is her magnificent disc of concert arias as well as Mozart’s beloved motet ‘Exsultate, jubilate’ and arias from two of the composer’s lesser-known operas. The […]
‘Operatic justice’, writes J.B. Steane in his informative and amusing note for this album, ‘is a law unto itself, and the baritone has been prominent among its victims. Unlucky in love, he is seen in the most favourable light as a father-figure and is otherwise all too often the villain of the piece. He may […]
One of Fricsay’s last recordings, this sublime ‘Figaro’ is once more restored to the catalogue. It boasts a Who’s Who of great Mozarteans from the late-1950s/early 1960s, including Irmgard Seefried, Maria Stader and Hertha Töpper with the magnificent Fischer-Dieskau in incomparable form as the Count Almaviva. The extensive booklet notes include a synopsis, notes on […]
Mozart’s final four quartets have a sublime quality. Two of these appear here, and the classic recording of KV575 receives its first international appearance on CD. Over the years Rainer Küchl became the VPO’s first concertmaster and his quartet has evolved to a point where only he remains from the four who recorded back in […]
These recordings of Mozart’s String Quartets (some of his final ones) KV 499 and KV 589, made in 1961 at the Sofiensaal in Vienna, have historic significance as the last gasp of a Viennese style of string playing of Mozart which stemmed from before World War II. Otto Strasser (1901–96), Willi Boskovsky (1909–91), his exact […]
Barry Tuckwell and Mozart are synonymous. He recorded the composer’s works several times during his horn-playing career, beginning with the Horn Concertos recorded with Peter Maag. In July 1983, he recorded them again, directing the English Chamber Orchestra from the horn. The sessions extended to include many of Mozart’s chamber works with horn – the […]
‘When he is at his best he plays more beautifully than any of us’ wrote Alfred Brendel on the pianism of Wilhelm Kempff. Eloquence is proud to announce a mini-edition devoted to some of the rarer recordings of Wilhelm Kempff, born in 1895 at Jüterbog, the son of a church organist. By 1916, Kempff was […]
