Proms composer 3 (14.08.21) Mozart

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

9.30
Proms Composer: Mozart
Natasha Loges chooses five indispensable recordings of BBC Proms Composer Mozart and explains why you need to hear them.

[jayne lee wilson]

9.30
Proms Composer: Mozart
Natasha Loges chooses five indispensable recordings of BBC Proms Composer Mozart and explains why you need to hear them.

Goodness - if that isn't a challenge, nothing is.....! 5? Really? Brave Natasha!
Still it might be fun if we all had a go....c'mon now, just 5....

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Goodness - if that isn't a challenge, nothing is.....! 5? Really? Brave Natasha!
Still it might be fun if we all had a go....c'mon now, just 5....

Symphony no 40 (Furtwangler)
Don Giovanni (Davis)
Piano Concertos (Haebler)
C Minor Mass (Gardiner)
Piano Sonatas (Uchida)

[Ein Heldenleben]

Symphony no 40 (Furtwangler)
Don Giovanni (Davis)
Piano Concertos (Haebler)
C Minor Mass (Gardiner)
Piano Sonatas (Uchida)

Don Giovanni - Guilini
Le Nozze Di Figaro Kleiber
Symphony No 41 Fritz Reiner Chicago Symphony Orchestra
String Quartets Italian String Quartet
Sonata for two Pianos in D Josef and Rosa Lhevinne

(Apologies no HIPP indeed nothing after 1970)

[jayne lee wilson]

Oh God this is so difficult.... a first go anyway...

Symphonies 39-41 "Mozart's Instrumental Oratorium" - CMW/Harnoncourt.
(Doesn't matter how you feel about the concept - this is just great, late Mozart...).
Or
Australian CO/Tognetti. (Let it rip, let 'em have it, Richard!)

String Quintets. (Kuijken Quartet & Ryo Terakado or Quatuor Van Kuijk/La Marcia).

"Haydn" String Quartets. (Kuijken Quartet).

"Prussian" Quartets (Quatuor Mosaïques).

Piano Concertos (Brautigam/ KA/Willens or VSO/Buchbinder)

Bit of cheating - modern/period instrument alternatives...! )

[french frank]

Bit of cheating )

More cheating here: I can't actually think of 5 works which under no circumstances (or very few) would I want on my Desert Island. But a couple clearly composed when Mozart was in skittish mode would be:

Musikalisches Würfelspiel, K516f
Ein musikalischer Spass K. 522

My 5 definite choices would be neither in any general sense "indispensable", nor would anyone "need" to hear them - so I cheat again. But the choices would be single works which mean something special to me, but most of them wouldn't be on anyone else's list, probably:

1 Symphonie concertante in Eb K 297B (reconstruction Levin): Nicolet, Holliger Baumann, Thunemann, ASMF/Marriner

2 Fantasia in C minor, K 475, A Haefliger

3 Piano concerto 17 in G, K453, Perahia/EngChambOrch

4 Oboe Quartet in F, K370, for oboe, violin, viola, cello, N. Daniel and 3 Lindsays

5 Symphony 40, SCO/Mackerras

More orchestral works and fewer chamber than I would have expected, but oh well …

[rauschwerk]

I could easily make more than one list of five, but this is today's:-

1 Piano Sonata in D, K576 - Solomon. Incomparable interpretation and tone quality. His sound is better captured here than on his Mozart concerto recordings.

2 Piano Concerto 21 in C, K467 - Kovacevich/LSO/Colin Davis. Such panache in the finale that I feel like applauding every time I hear it.

3 Mass in C minor - Gardiner. Especially wonderful singing from Sylvia McNair and Anthony Rolfe Johnson.

4 Clarinet Quintet - Thea King (basset clarinet)/Gabrieli Quartet.

5 The Marriage of Figaro - DVD from the ROH conducted by Pappano with Erwin Schrott, Miah Persson, Gerald Finley, Dorothea Röschmann. This is perfomed uncut, unlike some older audio recordings.

[makropulos]

An impossible undertaking, but what a lovely batch of records. All of Natasha L's choices were excellent, several were appropriately personal (with such a daunting task that seems a very reasonable way to go about choosing some of them). Equilbey's Mozart Requiem was new to me and sounded wonderful.

[french frank]

Equilbey's Mozart Requiem was new to me and sounded wonderful.

I almost chose the Requiem but thought it might be scoffed at. A sucker for a good story, me.

[LeMartinPecheur]

I was delighted by the inclusion of the Fantasy in F Minor, played by Perahia and Lupu. Is this work a tough challenge for HIP? - I'm assuming the mechanical organ for which it was written doesn't survive. But isn't a mechanical instrument mandatory?

I'm very tempted to say that Mozart himself would have enjoyed a performance by real human beings, but wouldn't this be the same argument as "Mozart would have adored a modern Steinway"?

OK, I know that, strictly, what we heard wasn't Mozart but Mozart arr. Busoni...but how do we get back to the 'real' composition?

[EDIT "...but how do we get back to the 'real' composition?" THE LMP irony-light was on when I wrote that, but possibly not clear enough. Who wants 'authentic' performance in this work, which so much benefits from real performers?]

[cloughie]

K452 Panhoffer Vienna Octet
K504 LSO Maag
K250 BavRSO Kubelik
K595 Backhaus VPO Bohm
K364 Stern Zukerman ECO Barenboim
K498 Bishop Brymer Ireland

Minor cheating - call it a bakers 5 - 6/626 narrows it down a lot!

At least I didn’t go for swathes!