I think Haydn may be coming back into vogue - while we cannot move for Mozart in the concert schedules this year, I came across more Haydn than Mozart last year. Indeed, one of the finest concerts I have seen in recent years was Welser-Most and the Cleveland Orchestra in a programme that included symphony no.100 - one of the particularly interesting things (for you, as a bassist, anyway) was the way he arranged the orchestra with the basses along the back in a row, raised up, which grave them a much greater prominence than normal with the result that they almost formed the engine of the orchestra. It was very exciting (particularly in the William Tell overture - which I normally cannot stand due to snobbery!).

Oops - I seem to have wandered some way from Mozart again! I shall have to look up Furtwangler's symphony recordings - my DG box of various live stuff from the late 40s and early 50s, while encompassing a number of gems (including a stunning Bruckner 8 and the Schubert unfinished) sadly has no Mozart....

regards, Tam

Mozart Symphony in E Flat, no 39, recorded live with the BPO under Furtwangler in 1942 without an audience in the old Philharmonic Hall for Radio broadcast. It is out on DG, as for some reason I actually looked the other day when hunting for other things, but in a multi-CD set, which is not how I like to get things. I have it in any case, but for those without it, the box may prove a nice move as it will broaden sideways any collection. (How I work anyway, but with individual issues!).

On the Quartets, I am not qualified to write. I prefer Haydn's (off topic again, but the two are so intertwined!), butI adore some of the rest , and will ponder something over the weekend.

This is going to be a lovely Thread. Fredrik

Perhaps we need a Haydn thread. Then again, as you say the two are so intertwined.....

Have just spotted the set you mention on Amazon for £12 and since in includes the Schubert Great I think they'll be having some of my money.....


regards, Tam

Interesting profile of Uchida in today's Grauniad:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/features/story/0,,1717303,00.html?gusrc=rss

I wonder if the Mozart concerto cycle mentioned with the Cleveland orchestra is a concert or recording project. I suspect the former

regards, Tam

We can't let this thread disappear.

Anyway, anyone who is remotely interested in Mozart should read, if only as an antidote to the factually flawed (but visually stunning) "Amadeus", H.C. Robbins Landon's quite brilliant "1991 Mozart's Last Year". A superb piece of biographical research and an infinitely touching portrait of this greatest of genius's final months on this earth.

Graham

quote:

Originally posted by Tam:
Interesting profile of Uchida in today's Grauniad:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/features/story/0,,1717303,00.html?gusrc=rss

regards, Tam

Thanks for that link, Tam! I have had an ongoing love affair with Uchida's music, but never had read a profile of her life. No CD collection is complete without her Mozart sonatas.

Just read a review in Stereophile last night of Anne-Sophie Mutter's new 2 CD set of the Mozart Violin Concertos 1-5, her third go-around with those, and the Sinfonia Concertante with viola. Stereophile said the interpretations (with her conducting) are adventuresome, as have been all her recent releases, and perhaps not to everyone's liking. The reviewer did like the interpretations, awarding 5 stars. He had a minor quibble with DG's sound quality, as have I in the past. I've just ordered it and I will get back with how it sounds. I have her first go-around, recorded with H. von Karajan, so it will be interesting to see what a difference some 30 years makes.

Norman

I really don't think it's possible to say enough good things about Uchida's sonatas - anyone who doesn't own them should. It's a shame that her concerti haven't got such good reviews (but they're about to get a rerelease at budget price so I probably won't be able to help myself....)

Speaking of the piano concerti, I have just been listing to a few discs of Brendel/Mackerras/SCO (of which I now have all four) and when I've done with them I'll post my full thoughts - however, suffice to say they're pretty good.

As to DG's sound, it can be a little funny sometimes. I'm sure I've read elsewhere that they go in for a philosophy of 'the more the merrier' in terms of microphone placement, and this may have something to do with it. That said, the recent Mackerras Clemenza (also on DG) is wonderful, and the use of plenty of microphones helped with the balance of Trost who (in the concert they did afterwards) was a little quiet in relation to everyone else.

regards, Tam

Well, bugger me, I meant to type "1791" above, but I can't change the effer.

And yet I can change other postings that I've made on other postings.

Is this entirely random, or is it some sort of joke on Naim's part? I just don't see the humour in it all. Come on, moderators, shape up, for fuxxake!

Graham

Graham,

I think it may be down to how old the post is. But either way it is very silly indeed and should be dealt with.

regards, Tam

Tam

No, it's not that, but no matter.

I'm enormously excited to see that DGG are just about to release a 3CD set of Friedrich Gulda called "The Mozart Tapes" (if I remember correctly) in which he plays "10 sonatas and a fantasia". I'll get it from Germany, where it's already available (once the new CK LvB7 is out).

Graham

Well, having listened to the last of my Brendel/Mackerras/SCO discs I can thoroughly recommend them all (well, save for the 22 and 27 which had some kind of scratch covering the last two minutes of the disc :O). Working in something approaching chronological order then:

First up is a disc of 9&25 which (I think is most commonly now available as a SACD, I think a hybrid). As I've said above, the 9th is one of my favourites and this reading doesn't disappoint. However, it does feel (as indeed, does this whole disc) ever so slightly 'by the numbers'. That's not to say there's anything wrong with it, quite the reverse, there is some stunning playing all round, but the readings just seem to lack a certain something (especially in comparison to the other three discs).

Next (and in terms of recording dates, most recent) is a coupling of 12&17. I suppose that I should declare something of an interest on this one in that I was at the concert they did of this pairing at the 2004 Edinburgh festival just after they'd recorded them. I suspect that lends an extra special something to the recordings for me that might not be the case for those who weren't there. That said, on this disc everything seems to click: Brendel's delicate playing and Mackerras's perfectly judged accompaniment. If you only get one of this four discs, in my view this is the one.

I'm not going to dwell on the last two discs in detail (the 22&27 already mentioned and the coupling of 20&24), both are very fine and fall somewhere in between the two already mentioned. My preference for Mackerras as a Mozartian (and, frankly, just about everything) else is well recording and I think he gets some wonderful playing out of the SCO. One of the things I've noticed about him as a conductor is how well he is able to accompany (I think I mentioned this when I was talking about Clemenza) and you see it here with Brendel time and again.

In short, if you buy any of these discs you are unlikely to regret (well, unless one of them is scratched). Amazon currently has them going for £8 or £9 each. Bargain, frankly. If you get just one, try the 12&17, it really is rather fine indeed.

regards, Tam

quote:

H.C. Robbins Landon

I can't resist, sorry.

I met the man at the Bridgnorth Haydn Festival many years ago.

Basil

Naimdropper!

Graham

I know!

What he doesn't know about Haydn and Mozart isn't worth knowing.

Also (what the hell, in for a penny) I managed to speak to Jack Brymer after his performance of the Mozart clarinet concerto.

Name-dropping mode on!

I once turned the pages for Catherine Evans (Mrs Alan Hacker, pianist wife of the great clarinetist) in the Kegelstadt Trio with Hacker and a lovely viola player, whose name escapes me now! That was the most unpleasant experience I have had at a concert, and I was more nervous than if I had been actually playing something too hard for me! Mrs Hacker was delighted by my efforts, which of course were of a different order to turning at the desk in the orchestra, where you know the other player well, and how early to turn and so on.

Alan Hacker is a charming man, whom I had the pleasure to meet before the rehearsal, though I did not realise I had already been singled out for page turning duties! We talked for a couple of hours on matters musical. Apparently the impressario had told him about me and he was keen to talk to a mad boy from the countryside, who was described to him as 'musical.' People are nice aren't they! It was because of him I took up the bass!

Fredrik

I happened to be awake at 4.45am today, when the BBC World Service started an eight-part adaptation of Peter Schaffer's "Amadeus" read by F Murray Abraham. Now, as I've said above, "Amadeus" is sh*te, biographically speaking (so far as Mozart is concerned), but this included the extraordinary scene where Salieri hears and describes his first hearing of Mozart's Gran Partita (K 361) and runs from the room in tears, thinking that he has heard in Mozart's music "the voice of God". I found that scene in the film indescribably moving, and so it was again this morning.

Does anyone know whether this is this just an imagined inspiration by Schaffer or did this happen?

Graham

For anyone interested in his sacred works, there's a performance on R3 this evening at 1900. BBC Concert Orchestra will be playing Regina Coeli, K276; Ave verum corpus, K618; Mass in C K257 and Credo MassMass in Cm, K427.

Steve.

Graham,
I seem to recall from an earlier thread that you speak / read German. If I have not erred, I think you would really enjoy Brandauer liest Mozart, where the actor Claus Maria Brandauer reads from the letters of WAM. They have been playing these on the radio as part of the Mozart anniversary celebrations and they are very enjoyable and also insightful.
Huw

Huw

I'm a silly sod, really, as I've just spent the last few minutes ordering them, following your alerting me to them here. (I also ordered the Friedrich Gulda "Mozart Tapes", not yet released in the UK.)

I might now have to see whether the F Murray Abraham reading that I heard this morning is available.

Graham

Thought I'd bump this thread back up in order to post some more detailed thoughts on a couple of Mozart recordings that I've mentioned in other threads lately.



First up the Uchida/Tate/ECO cycle of Mozart piano concertos. Available for around £40 on 8 discs (which means, very annoyingly that several of the works, 16 and 19, are split between two discs). It doesn't (as is fairly normal) contain the first four concertos, which were only arranged by Mozart. I view this as something of a shame since I would dearly love to hear Uchida's playing in the slow movement of the second concerto. It doesn't include the concertos for two and three pianos nor the rondo KV386, though the latter is, in my view, no great loss.

So, how does it stack up. Well, those who read my post on Fredrik's library thread may have noted I kept it when pruning rest of my library for that list. Of the four complete cycles I now have (Perahia and both Barenboim's are the other three) it is by far the most consistently satisfying. It has the finest recorded sound of all of them and, I would argue, the finest orchestral playing (in general), about which more later. The downside, if such it be, is that the set has, with perhaps some justification, been criticised elsewhere as being 'over-pretty', and such a description would probably not be altogether surprising for those familiar with her piano sonatas. However, I think that such would be something of an unfair generalisation. In a number of cases she produces the finest accounts I own: the early concertos (5, 6 and 8) are especially fine, 12, 17, 19 and 25 are also highlights, though I also own fine Brendel/Mackerras recordings of many of those. Indeed, her 25 is wonderfully exciting and totally defies the adverse criticism I mentioned above.

I think it was Basil, in another thread, who asked me for my views on the 23rd. Sadly I found this to be a little disappointing. It wasn't bad, indeed it was very accomplished (as is all the playing), but in this case there was some degree of soul and sparkle missing. My guiding light for the 23rd is the stunning Horowitz/Giulini recording with the orchestra of La Scala; unbelievably it was made when he was in his 80s yet, especially in the finale, he seems more dextrous than Uchida and in the middle movement his playing more beautiful. Sadly (criminally, even) this recording is, as far as I'm aware, not available separately but only as part of DG's six disc set of Horowitz's complete recordings for them. However, this isn't so awful, because the whole set is very good and entirely worth having; fans of the 23rd ought to seek this out.

No complete survey is every going to completely satisfy or hold all the keys, but Uchida's will probably be my last (though I suspect I will still buy the odd individual recording). I suspect part of the reason I have enjoyed it so much is that I simply prefer her kind of style or pianism. While listening to this set I have occasionally turned back to the Perahia again (still at a loss to explain its popularity) and one of the things I have noticed is just how 'percussive' his pianism is, generating a sound that I simply do not find appealing. Barenboim, for the record, falls somewhere between the two.

Which leaves me one more thing to mention. I said at the start that this set had very fine orchestral playing. What is interesting is that three of my four complete cycles feature the same orchestra, the ECO and Uchida's recordings follow very closely after Perahia (so one assumes that many of the players were the same). On the one occasion I saw Perahia live it was deeply disappointing (he did a Brandenburg concerto, the Beethoven 1st concerto and I think the Mozart 38th symphony, it was certainly one of the late 30s, with the Academy of Saint Martin in the Fields), what was so awful about it was how badly he conducted the orchestra, there was absolutely no cohesion at all. However, looking at the relative quality of the orchestral playing, I am now wondering whether having the orchestra directed from the piano is detrimental (as on all my other cycles). Of course, I have seen Barenboim live, and he is a pretty good conductor, but the orchestral playing on his recordings is generally good, without being in any danger of being great. And, as I look through the list of concertos I have chosen for my iPod, I discover that almost always I have opted for combinations where there is a conductor (except in concertos 1-4 where I do not have any such recordings, if they even exist). It makes me wonder why it is such a commonplace practice in the first place. I know Mozart did it, but none of the artists on record is Mozart. I also wonder whether part of the reason he did it was either that he was using much smaller forces or simply that it was much cheaper. I wonder what others who know more think about this?

In summary, however, it is a great set, and well worth getting.

regards, Tam