Mozart

[Cato]

Well, our local libraries do not have the Waisenhaus-Messe by the young Mozart.

Concerning this CD:

[asin]B000000SBU[/asin]

The two reviews on Amazon are not really very positive.  One calls it "so-so" but the other...

Sadly, this performance of the Waisenhaus Mass could almost be titled `Missa Ferus Homo de Borneo'. It is well recorded and sung (indeed, the soloists are afforded a surprising degree of latitude, vibrato-wise). Harnoncourt adopts sensible speeds throughout. Where the text calls for high drama - the Qui Tollis and the Crucifixus - it is duly supplied. In the negative, the performance is laced with clipped phrasing - it's almost the "Bonfire of Cadential Endings". Many a time Harnoncourt is heavy-handed, if not pugnacious, in the response he elicits from the Concentus Musicus Wien - to wit, the orchestral outburst that follows the adagio opening of the Kyrie - it sounds an excerpt from the "Ride the Rough Beast Rodeo". Such eruptions are common and it has to be said that on a bad day, the CMW is laborious to behold.

Notwithstanding all the care and energy that Harnoncourt lavishes upon the score, this is a haymaker which misses the target. This performance does not bespeak liturgy to me. It could almost be a madrigal set to the classical idiom.

(My emphasis above)

But it only costs c. $10.00 used, so...

[Gurn Blanston]

Well, our local libraries do not have the Waisenhaus-Messe by the young Mozart.

Concerning this CD:

[asin]B000000SBU[/asin]

The two reviews on Amazon are not really very positive.  One calls it "so-so" but the other...
(My emphasis above)

But it only costs c. $10.00 used, so...

  Well, I'm sure you have seen previously that some reviewers there are drama queens over the oddest things. All I can say is that if you want to, you will have to make up your own mind about it. I personally found it quite enjoyable (last summer when I last listened to it). Since I can be a harsh critic of Harnoncourt's Mozart, I think I would well remember if this was anywhere near as bad as all that!   

[Cato]

  Well, I'm sure you have seen previously that some reviewers there are drama queens over the oddest things. All I can say is that if you want to, you will have to make up your own mind about it. I personally found it quite enjoyable (last summer when I last listened to it). Since I can be a harsh critic of Harnoncourt's Mozart, I think I would well remember if this was anywhere near as bad as all that!   

Which is why I ordered it!  So, thanks for the recommendation!

[Gurn Blanston]

Which is why I ordered it!  So, thanks for the recommendation!

You're most welcome. And if you really want some bad Harnoncourt Mozart, try the "Overtures" disk. Some of them are damned near unrecognizable!!

[mc ukrneal]

You're most welcome. And if you really want some bad Harnoncourt Mozart, try the "Overtures" disk. Some of them are damned near unrecognizable!!

Yeah - I never listen to that disc.

[Leo K.]

Going to explore K.452 more this year, starting with Mozart's birthday.

[Mandryka]

Going to explore K.452 more this year, starting with Mozart's birthday.

There are good old ones with the Philadephia Woodwinds, one with Robert Casadesus and the other with Rudolf Serkin. The Serkin is very good in the last part.

And there are  very very old ones with Edwin Fischer if you're into that sort of thing, from 1943 with members of the Berlin P O, and and equally venerable one with Gieseking and Denis Brain somewhere in the ensemble.

Of the ones you list I know just the one with Robert Levin  and I thought it was splendid. It's a long time since I listened to the winds quintet though.

[Gurn Blanston]

Going to explore K.452 more this year, starting with Mozart's birthday.

I have a few of those, Leo, agree with Mandrake, the Levin is very good (used to be hard to find and expensive though, don't know if it still is). I found this one here and there (can't remember where I bought it! );



and it satisfies no end. Good players (Hoeprich is King of the Mountain in the Clarinet category, not to mention Kelley & Godburn!), and they just hit everything right, IMO. A solid suggestion.   I'll dig a bit more, I am quite sure I have another that you would like. BTW, I also have that Barenboim / Cleveland disk .....  zzzzzzzz...... 

[Marc]

Which is why I ordered it!  So, thanks for the recommendation!

I rate it rather high, too, FWIW. It's a very enjoyable performance.

The negative Amazon reviewer is claiming there is no 'liturgical' atmosphere in this performance. But to me, with some exceptions of course (later works like Ave verum Corpus and the Requiem Mass), that's exactly the 'problem' with Mozart's sacred music, which apparently was captured by Harnoncourt and his forces.

From his childhood on, Mozart didn't long to compose religious music, he wanted to write secular opera's. And it's audible. Even a 'movingly devout' aria like the Et incarnatus est from the unfinished great C minor Mass is nothing but a virtuoso opera aria for a skilled soprano voice, as Mozart had been writing so often for his earlier operae seria.

Well, all this just my tuppence worth, of course.

[Gurn Blanston]

I rate it rather high, too, FWIW. It's a very enjoyable performance.

The negative Amazon reviewer is claiming there is no 'liturgical' atmosphere in this performance. But to me, with some exceptions of course (later works like Ave verum Corpus and the Requiem Mass), that's exactly the 'problem' with Mozart's sacred music, which apparently was captured by Harnoncourt and his forces.

From his childhood on, Mozart didn't long to compose religious music, he wanted to write secular opera's. And it's audible. Even a 'movingly devout' aria like the Et incarnatus est from the unfinished great C minor Mass is nothing but a virtuoso opera aria for a skilled soprano voice, as Mozart had been writing so often for his earlier operae seria.

Well, all this just my tuppence worth, of course.

AAAaaaa...mennnn!.   0:)    One of the lasting impressions that I came away with when researching that thread I had on Austrian Sacred music was that their perception of what constituted propriety in church music was way different from what contemporaneous Catholics in other countries and Protestants anywhere believed!  Only the Italians came close, or perhaps exceeded them. I always get a knot in my knickers when I read someone judging something (particularly music) based on values and mores that are nowhere near the culture that the music sprang from.

[Marc]

AAAaaaa...mennnn!.   0:)    One of the lasting impressions that I came away with when researching that thread I had on Austrian Sacred music was that their perception of what constituted propriety in church music was way different from what contemporaneous Catholics in other countries and Protestants anywhere believed!  Only the Italians came close, or perhaps exceeded them. I always get a knot in my knickers when I read someone judging something (particularly music) based on values and mores that are nowhere near the culture that the music sprang from.

Not to mention the bonus problem for poor mr. Mozart, the still existing association of his music with angels and with sweetness. Damn those Mozart Kugeln!

I was puzzling the last, say, half hour about Mozartian music containing 'religious awe' and I came up with a.o. the Kyrie in D minor (KV 341), the Maurerische Trauermusik (KV 477), the Qui tollis from the C minor Mass (KV 427) and the Kyrie fugue from the Requiem Mass.
After that, I felt pretty satisfied with these findings .... but then I thought: why not the closing chorus to the first act of La Clemenza di Tito? Why not the duetto of the armoured men in Die Zauberflöte? Why not the Ouvertüre to Don Giovanni? Religious or secular awe: what's the difference? It's all part of human life.

And I also realized that, compared to Bach during the first half of the 18th century, who always wanted to create the most ingenious music to honour his God, no matter if it were religious or secular, the music of Haydn and Mozart's Enlightenment period was also meant to be understandable for the mortal. And that both starting points led to the same thing in one way or the other: not much conceptual and atmospheric differences between religious and secular music. Laß Fürstin = Geh Jesu and Agnus Dei = Dove sono. Bach honoured God with his secular music and Mozart honoured man (AND WOMAN! ) with his religious music.

Let it be.

[Parsifal]

It is accepted knowledge that there is a small body of works among Mozart's output which comprise his true "masterpieces"  But one of the wonderful things about listening to Mozart is that you can find the most extraordinary gems hidden within his most "minor" works.   Recently I listened to Mozart's Divertimento for Winds in B-flat, KV270.  The second movement, Andantino, struck me very strongly.  It is a short movement of 2 minutes or so, it seems to hold the place of the "slow" movement in this four movement work.  But it sounded to me as though it could have been a dance movement in one of Bach's orchestral suites.  A simple melody, effortless counterpoint, exquisitely managed harmonic progression, but beyond those tangible virtues an undefinable quality.  A small treasure, easily overlooked.  I was listening to a performance by the Danzi quintet released by Seon.

[Gurn Blanston]

It is accepted knowledge that there is a small body of works among Mozart's output which comprise his true "masterpieces"  But one of the wonderful things about listening to Mozart is that you can find the most extraordinary gems hidden within his most "minor" works.   Recently I listened to Mozart's Divertimento for Winds in B-flat, KV270.  The second movement, Andantino, struck me very strongly.  It is a short movement of 2 minutes or so, it seems to hold the place of the "slow" movement in this four movement work.  But it sounded to me as though it could have been a dance movement in one of Bach's orchestral suites.  A simple melody, effortless counterpoint, exquisitely managed harmonic progression, but beyond those tangible virtues an undefinable quality.  A small treasure, easily overlooked.  I was listening to a performance by the Danzi quintet released by Seon.

Welcome in, Parsifal. Thanks for making me slide over and listen to that again. You're right, it is a little gem, as is a lot of Mozart's wind writing. I am interested in that disk you mention (SEON is a guaranteed winner of a label for me), I need to go find that rascal. In the meantime, I will hang with Ensemble Philodor, they are very fine too.

[huntsman]

Man!

I've just waded through the first 18 pages of this thread and feel drained!

Very little indeed about Wolfie, there was far too much about some chap named Haydn and then several pages of argument, primarily with two protagonists.

What I'm after, are chats and suggestions about which rendition of which piece of music is best, and  I see some on this page, which is a relief. 

Now, how far back dare I go...?

[Gurn Blanston]

Man!

I've just waded through the first 18 pages of this thread and feel drained!

Very little indeed about Wolfie, there was far too much about some chat named Haydn and then several pages of argument, primarily with two protagonists.

What I'm after, are chats and suggestions about which rendition of which piece of music is best, and  I see some on this page, which is a relief. 

Now, how far back dare I go...?

I can't remember the precise setup with this particular composer, but a thread in this section is not supposed  to be for recording recs, but for discussion of the composer himself. Since nothing goes as planned  on this forum, and getting forumites to follow even the most general guidelines is like herding cats, you are likely to find what yu want just about anywhere.

[Karl Henning]

. . . and getting forumites to follow even the most general guidelines is like herding cats . . . .

Not to say mangy cats in heat ; )

[huntsman]

Heh heh!

Well, I am now cheered up and ready to tackle a few more pages, albeit backwards. 

BTW Is this the correct forum to establish, say, who is the best conductor/tenor/violinist for Wolfie's work or do I use the 'Recommended Recordings' forum?

[Parsifal]

You can search for the term Mozart in threads in the recordings board and find numerous threads about Mozart performance.  One I came up with is this:

http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,232.msg3313.html#msg3313

[huntsman]

Now that does look good - thanks, Parsifal!

[Opus106]

BTW Is this the correct forum to establish, say, who is the best conductor/tenor/violinist for Wolfie's work or do I use the 'Recommended Recordings' forum?

Well, if you consider that realistically possible, then yes.