My Must-have Mozart Albums

[Musicophile]

This was triggered by a question on my blog.

 

My Must-have Mozart Albums | musicophilesblog – From Keith Jarrett to Johannes Brahms

 

I'm absolutely sure I've missed many great albums, do you have any you'd like to recommend in particular?

[astrotoy]

This was triggered by a question on my blog.

 

My Must-have Mozart Albums | musicophilesblog – From Keith Jarrett to Johannes Brahms

 

I'm absolutely sure I've missed many great albums, do you have any you'd like to recommend in particular?

 

The Martin Frost Mozart Clarinet Concerto is a wonderful album. We heard Frost play the concerto this past Spring (maybe last Fall) in Berkeley. He is a joy to hear and watch. He literally dances to the music while he plays. I saw him first in London a couple of years ago in a solo recital in Wigmore Hall. The Wigmore concerts are usually full of ancient people, like me, with lots of canes and walkers. However, this audience had many young people - coming to see Frost - who obliged them by wearing shiny leather pants! A true performer.

 

I really like the famous Eric Kleiber Figaro from 1956 (Decca), and Rene Jacobs also (much more recent). Also the George Szell Sinfonia Concertante (K364), and his Exsultate, Jubilate with Judith Raskin. The Bruno Walter late Symphonies are another treat, played very differently than the more modern HIP performances. I first learned the Mozart "Haydn" Quartets on recordings by the Quartetto Italiano, still among my favorites. Stephen Kovacevich's Piano Concerto 23 is another favorite. Enough for now. (All the recordings mentioned I have on vinyl except the Frost (hirez download) and Jacobs (mch SACD).

 

Larry

[Musicophile]

The Martin Frost Mozart Clarinet Concerto is a wonderful album. We heard Frost play the concerto this past Spring (maybe last Fall) in Berkeley. He is a joy to hear and watch. He literally dances to the music while he plays. I saw him first in London a couple of years ago in a solo recital in Wigmore Hall. The Wigmore concerts are usually full of ancient people, like me, with lots of canes and walkers. However, this audience had many young people - coming to see Frost - who obliged them by wearing shiny leather pants! A true performer.

 

I really like the famous Eric Kleiber Figaro from 1956 (Decca), and Rene Jacobs also (much more recent). Also the George Szell Sinfonia Concertante (K364), and his Exsultate, Jubilate with Judith Raskin. The Bruno Walter late Symphonies are another treat, played very differently than the more modern HIP performances. I first learned the Mozart "Haydn" Quartets on recordings by the Quartetto Italiano, still among my favorites. Stephen Kovacevich's Piano Concerto 23 is another favorite. Enough for now. (All the recordings mentioned I have on vinyl except the Frost (hirez download) and Jacobs (mch SACD).

 

Larry

As usual, I agree with all your recommendations.

[beetlemania]

This was triggered by a question on my blog.

 

My Must-have Mozart Albums | musicophilesblog – From Keith Jarrett to Johannes Brahms

 

I'm absolutely sure I've missed many great albums, do you have any you'd like to recommend in particular?

 

This Chesky recording: http://www.amazon.com/Piano-Concertos-27-W-A-Mozart/dp/B000003GEG

is fantastic. Terrific performance and exceptional sonics.

[AnotherSpin]

I am trying to stay away from insisting on anything even to myself and, I am listening to Mozart's music almost everyday, sometimes for several hours or more, nevertheless, some of comparatively recent discoveries stand out among many other recordings.

 

Piano concertos: David Greilsammer - several Piano concertos albums, including one with early pieces, one with 9th and other with 22 and 24. 9th Piano Concerto by Alexandre Tharaud is beautiful (from another recent topic - Tharaud's Goldbergs are very unique and most dazzling). If you accept archive recordings, Lili Kraus had wonderful Piano Concertos albums as well. Double Piano Concertos album from Arthus and Lucas Jussen is my recent favorite. Just love Concertos by Ronald Brautigam.

 

Album of piano music from Zhu Xiao-Mei is fascinating (as her Bach and Scarlatti too).

 

Requiem by Masao Suzuki on BIS.

 

To some well-respected and loved by many recordings of Mozart's operas I am willing to add recent recordings of Don Giovanni, Cosi fan tutte and Die Entführung aus dem Serail conducted by Yannick Nezet-Seguin. Also, Die Zauberflöte conducted by William Christie.

[Musicophile]

Agree on Nézet, Brautigam, and Suzuki, the others I need to check out. Thanks for sharing.

[astrotoy]

We heard Suzuki on Saturday with his Bach Collegium Japan, however it was an all Bach concert. I have his complete set of Cantatas (including all those which were issued on SACD) but no Mozart. I'll have to look at the Requiem.

 

A couple more Mozart suggestions. First is an old mono recording from the early '50's - Dennis Brain playing the four Horn Concerti. He was probably the best horn player ever. Died too young at 36 in an auto accident. Also Beecham conducted two of his first chair people from the RPO in the Clarinet and Bassoon Concerti. Both are EMI recordings.

 

Larry

[AnotherSpin]

First is an old mono recording from the early '50's - Dennis Brain playing the four Horn Concerti. He was probably the best horn player ever. Died too young at 36 in an auto accident.

 

Larry

HDtracks offers it in 96-24 now. It is an awesome recording indeed.

[Musicophile]

We heard Suzuki on Saturday with his Bach Collegium Japan, however it was an all Bach concert. I have his complete set of Cantatas (including all those which were issued on SACD) but no Mozart. I'll have to look at the Requiem.

 

A couple more Mozart suggestions. First is an old mono recording from the early '50's - Dennis Brain playing the four Horn Concerti. He was probably the best horn player ever. Died too young at 36 in an auto accident. Also Beecham conducted two of his first chair people from the RPO in the Clarinet and Bassoon Concerti. Both are EMI recordings.

 

Larry

 

Ah the horn concertos. Haven't listened to them for ages. Thanks for reminding me.

[burnspbesq]

For me, the Dunedin Consort recording of the Requiem is unmatched.

[Boris75]

For me, the Dunedin Consort recording of the Requiem is unmatched.

 

I like it very much too, but I still very much prefer Karajan's and Muti's recordings. For Karajan, I am referring to the one with Agnès Baltsa and José van Dam, which is available on SACD. Muti's is also available on SACD from Esoteric, though this might have been originally recorded in 16-bit PCM. Anyhow, whatever its provenance, the Esoteric SACD sounds very good, and Muti's cast (the BPO, the Swedish Radio Chorus, Waltraud Meier, James Morris) have capabilities that far exceed their HIP competitors.

[mkrzych]

Mozart - The Weber Sisters

Sabine Devieilhe - Raphaël Pichon - Ensemble Pygmalion

 

 

You can pre-order it on Qobuz now. I have her Rameau album which is very good. This one at least from the web sound pretty nice.

[accwai]

We heard Suzuki on Saturday with his Bach Collegium Japan, however it was an all Bach concert.

 

They got a full house standing ovation in Toronto last night after they did an encore with Cum Sancto Spiritu from Handel's new Gloria. Excellent stuff. But what real strikes me is how tight and well thought out the program is, and how they managed to pull off so much with such a small number of players.

 

Ryo Terakado blew a E string right in the middle of the 1st movement of Brandenburg #5 and he kept going until the harpsichord cadenza. Suzuki held off the beginning of the 2nd movement without even turning around to find out what happened.

 

Apparently there are two different programs being used in this North American tour. The other program has Brandenburg #2 and Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen, both of which have extremely heavy duty trumpet passages. I'd love to attend that one as well just to see and hear the valveless Baroque trumpet. No such luck, unfortunately.

 

I have his complete set of Cantatas (including all those which were issued on SACD) but no Mozart. I'll have to look at the Requiem.

 

For the Cantata cycle, I switched to download starting volume 51. So I don't have physical medium for the whole thing. I got the Requiem for free from eclassical after they fixed an issue on my account. They're very good that way. This reminds me I should get to it soon.

 

Now to get back to the topic at hand, Mozart's keyboard sonatas hasn't been mentioned so far. If I were to pick a single must have album from that, it would be Yoko Kaneko's Mozart: Works From His Golden Age on MA Recordings. It's among the best sound quality of solo keyboard recordings I've come across so far.

[astrotoy]

They got a full house standing ovation in Toronto last night after they did an encore with Cum Sancto Spiritu from Handel's new Gloria. Excellent stuff. But what real strikes me is how tight and well thought out the program is, and how they managed to pull off so much with such a small number of players.

 

Ryo Terakado blew a E string right in the middle of the 1st movement of Brandenburg #5 and he kept going until the harpsichord cadenza. Suzuki held off the beginning of the 2nd movement without even turning around to find out what happened.

 

Apparently there are two different programs being used in this North American tour. The other program has Brandenburg #2 and Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen, both of which have extremely heavy duty trumpet passages. I'd love to attend that one as well just to see and hear the valveless Baroque trumpet. No such luck, unfortunately.

 

 

 

For the Cantata cycle, I switched to download starting volume 51. So I don't have physical medium for the whole thing. I got the Requiem for free from eclassical after they fixed an issue on my account. They're very good that way. This reminds me I should get to it soon.

 

Now to get back to the topic at hand, Mozart's keyboard sonatas hasn't been mentioned so far. If I were to pick a single must have album from that, it would be Yoko Kaneko's Mozart: Works From His Golden Age on MA Recordings. It's among the best sound quality of solo keyboard recordings I've come across so far.

 

We heard the same program, with the same spectacular encore. No strings were broken. :-) Both the oboe/oboe d'amore soloist and the soprano Joanne Lunn, who towered over Suzuki and the other players, were wonderful.

 

Larry

[accwai]

We heard the same program, with the same spectacular encore. No strings were broken. :-) Both the oboe/oboe d'amore soloist and the soprano Joanne Lunn, who towered over Suzuki and the other players, were wonderful.

 

Yes, the oboe player was amazing. The length of some of the phrases coming out of him is pretty staggering, but he delivered it so gracefully. I also notice sometimes he didn't even take a breath between shorter phrases...

 

And Joanne Lunn was really animated. She's shaking all over the place on the crazy melisma in the Handel encore piece. That's great fun. When I got home, I was trying to find the piece in Bach masses and there was nothing even close. Then I noticed the similarity between it and the melisma passages in Messiah, e.g. Daughter of Zion. Turns out that's indeed the case. So this Gloria in B-flat major is in the buy queue now.

 

Oh, just came across Mozart - Arias for Male Soprano. Should be interesting to authenticity fanatics

 

By the way, what's the must have version of Mozart Mass in C minor?

[mordante]

I know nothing about classical music. However the best Mozart Requim is by Karl Bohm.

[Musicophile]

 

By the way, what's the must have version of Mozart Mass in C minor?

 

I have planned a blog post on this in the future, so I'll still have to check out some of the versions on Qobuz.

 

So far, my go-to version is the 1992 recording Herreweghe. To be fair, this was also my first recording, so I may be biased.

 

Mozart: Mass in C minor/Herreweghe - Classics Today

[Musicophile]

I have planned a blog post on this in the future, so I'll still have to check out some of the versions on Qobuz.

 

So far, my go-to version is the 1992 recording Herreweghe. To be fair, this was also my first recording, so I may be biased.

 

Mozart: Mass in C minor/Herreweghe - Classics Today

Started browsing around Qobuz for versions of the c-minor. Currently streaming this version and liking it quite a bit. Apparently a different completion, by the conductor himself.

 

Nathalie Dessay and Véronique Gens are featured beautifully in the arias.

 

[Axiom05]

I only have the John Eliot Gardner recording of the Mass, any comments/opinions on that one? I see that Presto Classical has the Herreweghe recording available as a download for a reasonable price, I might give it a try. (The CD is on sale but once you add shipping costs to the US it ends up costing more than the download.)

[PAP]

+1 for the Dunedin Consort. and thanks for an excellent blog.

[Musicophile]

+1 for the Dunedin Consort. and thanks for an excellent blog.

 

Thanks for the kind words.

[Axiom05]

Mozart - The Weber Sisters

Sabine Devieilhe - Raphaël Pichon - Ensemble Pygmalion

 

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You can pre-order it on Qobuz now. I have her Rameau album which is very good. This one at least from the web sound pretty nice.

 

You can check out the YouTube video:

[Musicophile]

You can check out the YouTube video:

 

Thanks for sharing.

 

I'm positively impressed that she gets the German pronunciation pretty well done, this is not always the case for French singers.

[Norton]

Must include:

 

Clarinet Concerto- Gervase de Peyer

Violin Concerti -Grumiaux

[steklo]

As for Mozart's Requiem, my long-term favorite is Peter Neumann's recording with Kölner Kammerchor and Collegium Carthusianum from 1991. Meanwhile the album is available in a box with all Mozart Masses:

 

Sämtliche Messen/Requiem: Amazon.de: Musik

 

Disc N°10 is the Requiem if you'd like to listen to some samples...