 |
1 CD -
3984-25914-2 - (p) 1999
|
|
| Wolfgang
Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Symphony No. 10 in G major,
KV 74 |
|
7' 42" |
|
- Allegro
|
3' 17" |
|
1
|
| - Andante
|
2' 14" |
|
2
|
| - Allegro |
2' 11" |
|
3
|
| Symphony No. 42 in F major,
KV 75 |
|
14' 16" |
|
- Allegro
|
3' 24" |
|
4
|
| - Menuetto - Trio |
3' 32" |
|
5
|
| - Andantino |
4' 48" |
|
6
|
| - Allegro |
2' 32" |
|
7
|
Symphony No. 44 in D major,
KV 81 (73l)
|
|
10' 47" |
|
- Allegro
|
3' 18" |
|
8
|
| - Andante |
4' 53" |
|
9
|
| - Allegro molto |
2' 36" |
|
10
|
Symphony No. 11 in D major,
KV 84 (73q)
|
|
10' 06" |
|
- Allegro
|
3' 48" |
|
11
|
| - Andante |
1' 39" |
|
12
|
- Allegro
|
4' 39" |
|
13
|
| Symphony No. 45 in D major,
KV 95 (73n) |
|
12' 23" |
|
- Allegro
|
1' 59" |
|
14
|
| - Andante |
3' 54" |
|
15
|
| - Menuetto - Trio |
2' 58" |
|
16
|
- Allegro
|
3' 32" |
|
17
|
| Symphony No. 46 in C major,
KV 96 (111b) |
|
13' 05" |
|
- Allegro
|
2' 06" |
|
18
|
| - Andante |
4' 21" |
|
19
|
| - Menuetto - Trio |
3' 32" |
|
20
|
- Molto allegro
|
3' 06" |
|
21
|
|
|
|
|
CONCENTUS MUSICUS
WIEN (with original
instruments)
|
|
-
Erich Höbarth, Violine
|
-
Gerold Klaus, Viola |
|
| -
Alice Harnoncourt, Violine |
-
Ursula Kortschak, Viola |
|
| -
Andrea Bischof, Violine |
-
Dorle Sommer, Viola |
|
| -
Helmut Mitter, Violine |
-
Herwig Tachezi, Violoncello |
|
| -
Peter Schoberwalter, Violine |
-
Dorothea Guschlbauer-Kubizek, Violoncello |
|
| -
Anita Mitterer, Violine |
-
Eduard Hruza, Violone |
|
| -
Walter Pfeiffer, Violine |
-
Andrew Ackerman, Violone |
|
| -
Maria Kubizek, Violine |
-
Robert Wolf, Traversflöte |
|
-
Thomas Fheodoroff, Violine
|
-
Reinhard Czasch, Traverrsflöte |
|
| -
Editha Fetz, Violine |
-
Hans Peter Westermann, Oboe |
|
| -
Barbara Klebel, Violine |
-
Marie Wolf, Oboe |
|
-
Veronika Kröner, Violine
|
-
Christian Beuse, Fagott |
|
| -
Peter Schoberwalter junior, Violine |
-
Andreas Lackner, Naturtrompete |
|
| -
Irene Troi, Violine |
-
Martin Rabl, Naturtrompete |
|
-
Gertrud Weinmeister, Violine
|
-
Glen Borling, Naturhorn |
|
| -
Sophie Schaeftleitner, Violine |
-
Edward Desjur, Naturhorn |
|
| -
Lynn Pascher, Viola |
-
Dieter Seiler, Pauken |
|
|
|
| Nikolaus
Harnoncourt |
|
|
Luogo
e data di registrazione
|
Casino
Zögernitz, Vienna (Austria) - dicembre
1997
|
|
Registrazione
live / studio
|
| studio |
Producer
/ Engineer
|
Wolfgang
Mohr / Helmut Mühle / Michael Brammann
|
Prima Edizione CD
|
| Teldec
Classics "Das Alte Werk" - 3984-25914-2
- (1 cd) - 69' 10" - (p) 1999 - DDD |
|
Prima
Edizione LP
|
-
|
|
|
Early Masterpieces by a
Part-Time Symphonist
|
By the time that the
itinerant child prodigy Wolfgang
Amadeus Mozart began to take an active
interest in the symphony in the mid-1760s,
the genre had long since outgrown its
origins in the Italianate operatic
overture and was now approaching its
prime. Legion were the occasions on
which such a sinfonia could be
performed, serving either to frame the
most varied concert programmes or as a
stylish adjunct to
courtly or religious celebrations,
with the result that the 18th
century witnessed rt veritable
flood of symphonies that engulfed the
whole of Europe (more than 10,000
works are attested).
Within a short space of time, the
symphony became the
universal instrumental genre tout
court.
It comes as no surprise,
therefore, to find Mozart making his
own contribution to the genre and
writing a total of around sixty
symphonies in the course of
his hrief career as a composer. Of
these, some forty-eight
have survived. But nor is it any
surprise to discover that Mozart was
long remembered am no more than a
part-time symphonist and that only his
later syrnphonies
were printed and performed. The two
dozen or so works that were written
during his years of apprenticeship and
in the course of his visits to
England, France and Italy
were almost completely igiored.
Ultimately, Mozart came to be seen as
a uniquely original musical genius, enjoying
a posthumous reputation as a beacon
of his age and inspiring increasing
veneration and mystification,
so that for a long time there was
an unwillingness
and even an inability to accept that,
in keeping with his father's maxim
that he should always have a number of
new symphonies up his sleeve whenever
he was on tour, he wrote such works by
the metre - all of which, be it added,
are astonishing coups de génie.
This attitude on the part of
posterity, coupled with the undeniably
occasional nature of Mozart's
early symphonies, has unfortunately
meant that these works have come down
to us in less than reliable
editions. In many cases, the autograph
scores no longer exist, and instead we
are forced to rely on later copies or
printed editions, some of which can no
longer be attributed to
Mozart with total confidence.
Of the works included in the present
release, only Symphony K. 74 survives
in the form of an autograph score,
although even here it was not known
until relatively recently when the
piece was written. Such typically Italianate
features as the elision of the first
two movements had admittedly already
suggested a date of 1769-1771, when
Mozart and his father paid the first
of their visits to Italy. (In
fact, this very transition already
reveals the hand of a master, with the
change of metre from the common-time
opening Allegro to the 3/8 of the
Andante skilfully obscured by the
retention of a quaver figure in the
oboes.) But the new generally accepted
date of early 1770 could be
hazarded only after
detailed research revealed
that the symphony is written on
the same rare type of paper that
Mozart used for an aria known to have
been composed
in Rome in April 1770.
A surviving letter that Mozart wrote
to his sister at this time
contains a rare reference to his Italian
symphonies (the letter
is written in the local language):
“Finita questa lettera, finirò una
sinfonia mia, che cominciai, l'aria
è finita, una sinfonia e dal
copista (il quale è
il mio padre)" (When I've
finished this letter, I'll
complete a symphony that I`ve
started, the aria is finished, a
symphony is with the copyist
- my father). It
remains unclear what the symphonies
mentioned in this letter may be,
although the likeliest
contenders are K. 81 and
84: the non autograph copies of their
orchestral parts indicate that the
first of them was
written in Rome and
that the second was composed in Milan
and Bologna, where the Mozarts had
stayed before travelling on to Rome.
Equally unresolved is the question
whether one or other of
these symphonies is by Leopold Mozart
(although the musical quality of all
the works recorded here convinces the
present performers that they are
without exception authentic) but,
whatever the answer, there is no
denying that they are classic examples
of the Italian
orchestral style of the period: with
their brilliant opening gambits
(upwardly arpeggiated D
major chords) and regular periodic
structure, their initial movemenn are
both cast in standard
sonata form and followed
by delicately
instrumented andante
movements, while the horn calls of the
finale of K. 81
recall the then popular genre of the sinfonia
da caccia and the quaver
triplets of the second
Allegro from K. 84 imitate the parlando
style of contemporary opere
buffe. If these
works really are by Mozart, as is
almost certainly the case, they afford
an impressive example of the barely
fourteen-year-old
composer's outstantling ability to
appreciate and assimilate the local
style in his own compositions.
Another work that is now believed to
date from the time of Mozart's first
visit to Italy is
Symphony K. 95, a dating suggested not
least by its striking similarities
with K. 74, also in D maior: both
begin in an unusual way, with a
trenchant forte chord in the
lull orchestra, after
which the melody continues in the
violins to the accompaniment of only
pounding quavers in the violas. The F
major Symphony K. 75, by contrast, was
almost certainly written in Salzburg
in 1771. The sophisticated handling of
the themes of both the opening
movement (in which broken octaves on
the oboes and turns on the violins
complement each other to artistic
effect) and the finale (where the
introduction of a rest results in a
somewhat surprising nine-har period),
together with the unusual placing of
the Menuetto in second position,
attests to a new stage in Mozart's
sovereign approach to the symphony as
a genre.
The C major Symphony K. 96 is scorerl
for pairs of oboes, horns, trumpets
and timpani in addition to the usual
strings and continuo, producing
particularly splendid sononties in the
outer movements. It is not known
whether it was written for some
special occasion, although the
pastoral character of the 6/8 Andante,
which recalls pieces such as the
Pastoral Symphony from Handel's
Messiah and which, as
a result, sounds almost old-fashioned,
may suggest one of the festive
ceremonies held at the Salzburg court
around Christmas. But quite apart from
all these questions and snppositions,
the work continues to give unalloyed
pleasure and nicely
rounds off the multifaceted picture ol
Mozart's development as a "part-time
symphonist" that this selection of
early masterpieces provides.
Annette
Oppermann
Translation:
Stewart Spencer
|
|
Nikolaus
Harnoncourt (1929-2016)
|
|
|
|
