Mozart

Started by facehugger, April 06, 2007, 02:37:52 PM

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Mandryka

"Interesting" live Gran Partita from Harnoncourt in Zurich in 2011, released last year I think -  I missed it. He was evidently thinking a lot about Mozart around this time.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pGorDT96l7E
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

vers la flamme

If anyone cares to recommend to me a work by Mozart that is a little off the beaten path, any genre, I would be much obliged :)

Mandryka

#1402
Quote from: vers la flamme on October 09, 2022, 06:19:57 PM
If anyone cares to recommend to me a work by Mozart that is a little off the beaten path, any genre, I would be much obliged :)

Divertimento K334
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Florestan

Quote from: vers la flamme on October 09, 2022, 06:19:57 PM
If anyone cares to recommend to me a work by Mozart that is a little off the beaten path, any genre, I would be much obliged :)

Sonata for Bassoon and Cello in B-Flat Major, K.292 / 196c
La Betulia Liberata KV 118
Oboe Quartet in F major, K. 370/368b

And when was the last time you listened to his songs for voice and piano?
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Mandryka

#1404
Violin and Viola duo K424
Wind serenade K375
Oboe Quartet k370
Flute quartet no 1 k285
Horn Quintet k407
Duo for Violin/Viola no 1 k423
Violin Sonata k526
Quintet for Piano and Winds K542
String Trio K563
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Jo498

- All piano trios, but the best are, I think, the best known, K 502, 542 and 498 (clarinet, viola)
- Music for two pianos and piano 4 hands, esp. K 448 and 497.
- Adagio b minor K 540, rondo a minor K 511 (piano)
- Concertone for 2 violins (+ oboe and cello) K 190
- Thamos (incidental music),
- Zaide (incomplete singspiel, basically a more serious pre-Abduction)
Tout le malheur des hommes vient d'une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos, dans une chambre.
- Blaise Pascal

Mandryka

#1406
Years ago, the BBC had a Mozart saturation week -- I think it was a whole week, maybe four days. Complete works. Anyway when they said they were going to do it, I said it wouldn't work, that there's too much uninteresting music. But you know, whenever I turned on the radio in the car, there was always something good to hear. They'd done it before with Bach, and that was astonishing -- it wasn't that whenever you turned on the radio there was something good to hear, it was more like, there was something amazing to hear.

But Mozart was excellent at writing music! And just doing this little exercise for vers la flamme (if it were me I'd change that straight away to vers la flemme!) I realised how many little gems there are.

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

#1407
Quote from: Florestan on October 09, 2022, 11:33:40 PM

And when was the last time you listened to his songs for voice and piano?

About 20 years ago. I remember the incident. I was with a singer manqué who had an audition, I think at Glyndebourne. Someone else, a singer slightly less manqué, her singing teacher, asked her what she was going to prepare and she said some Mozart lieder-- to which the reply was "Oh no, you can't possibly . . . !"

Later, privately, I asked why not Mozart and he said "Everyone does Mozart when they're out of ideas. It's not too hard and it always sounds lovely!"  I immediately went home and listened to some Mozart songs.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Pohjolas Daughter

Quote from: Mandryka on October 10, 2022, 01:23:53 AM
Years ago, the BBC had a Mozart saturation week -- I think it was a whole week, maybe four days. Complete works. Anyway when they said they were going to do it, I said it wouldn't work, that there's too much uninteresting music. But you know, whenever I turned on the radio in the car, there was always something good to hear. They'd done it before with Bach, and that was astonishing -- it wasn't that whenever you turned on the radio there was something good to hear, it was more like, there was something amazing to hear.
Those sound like great programmes!

Quote from: Mandryka on October 10, 2022, 01:29:46 AM
About 20 years ago. I remember the incident. I was with a singer manqué who had an audition, I think at Glyndebourne. Someone else, a singer slightly less manqué, her singing teacher, asked her what she was going to prepare and she said some Mozart lieder-- to which the reply was "Oh no, you can't possibly . . . !"

Later, privately, I asked why not Mozart and he said "Everyone does Mozart when they're out of ideas. It's not too hard and it always sounds lovely!"  I immediately went home and listened to some Mozart songs.
;D

PD
Pohjolas Daughter

Spotted Horses

#1409
Quote from: vers la flamme on October 09, 2022, 06:19:57 PM
If anyone cares to recommend to me a work by Mozart that is a little off the beaten path, any genre, I would be much obliged :)

Divertimenti for three basset horns, K439b.



Wonderfully inventive counterpoint, taking advantage of the sonorities of the instruments. I've heard recordings where other instruments are substituted, and it's not the same.
There are simply two kinds of music, good music and the other kind. - Duke Ellington

Florestan

Also, there's much more to his sacred music than the masses.
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

vers la flamme

Quote from: Florestan on October 09, 2022, 11:33:40 PM
Sonata for Bassoon and Cello in B-Flat Major, K.292 / 196c
La Betulia Liberata KV 118
Oboe Quartet in F major, K. 370/368b

And when was the last time you listened to his songs for voice and piano?

Quite recently in fact, while reading Haruki Murakami's Sputnik Sweetheart which mentions Mozart's Lieder prominently. I have a disc of Mitsuko Shirai singing them on the ultra-budget Laserlight label that's actually REALLY good!

I have my work cut out for me! Thanks, everyone. Going to check out a few of these tonight.

lordlance

#1412
Asahina turns in a really lively performance of The Marriage of Figaro overture which is highly surprising considering his predilection for Celibidachian tempi:

https://www.youtube.com/v/cW0TjxhWfHs

A really good performance.
If you are interested in listening to orchestrations of solo/chamber music, you might be interested in this thread.
Also looking for recommendations on neglected conductors thread.

Herman

Quote from: Mandryka on September 25, 2022, 03:25:14 AM
"Interesting" live Gran Partita from Harnoncourt in Zurich in 2011, released last year I think -  I missed it. He was evidently thinking a lot about Mozart around this time.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pGorDT96l7E

Gran Partita doesn't need a conductor.

Madiel

In my still very intermittent wanderings down the Kochel catalogue, I remember being very pleasantly surprised by the concert arias I encountered. There was some album (I was streaming) that brought them all together.
I am now working on a discography of the works of Vagn Holmboe. Please visit and also contribute!

Cato

Recently Mrs. Cato and I visited a Catholic cathedral in Florida.  The cathedral choir sang very well!  But there was no guide to anything they sang.

I did not recognize most of the hymns which they performed: stylistically they were of little interest.  Two stood out: one, I was positive, was by Thomas Tallis.  (A later search of YouTube confirmed my guess.)

The other was curious: it was a Regina Coeli which at times sounded like something by Händel.  There was even a quick quotation of the Hallelujah from The Messiah.

As the work continued, I deduced that probably it was by the adolescent or early adult Mozart, and it was!

K. 276

https://www.youtube.com/v/hemUGymXXDA


"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

Spotted Horses

I've been posting my experience listening through the Mozart Piano Sonatas on the listening thread. I went through the Zacharias set (originally EMI) dipping into van Oort and Brautigam to hear fortepiano performances, and some of the fantasias and other miscellaneous pieces that are not included in the Zacharias set.

The received wisdom I started with was that they are relatively insignificant pieces, not nearly as interesting as Mozart's Piano Concerti, not nearly as important as Beethoven's Piano Sonatas, unworthy of Mozart's genius. That didn't hold up. They vary in level of ambition and scale, but I a lot to enjoy in them, including ingenious counterpoint and passage work, poignant harmonies, compelling slow movements, and moments of great intensity. It was a genuine pleasure to listen to them, and Zacharias' recordings are utterly superb. I found van Oort Mozart style also particularly appeals to me.
There are simply two kinds of music, good music and the other kind. - Duke Ellington

Florestan

Quote from: Spotted Horses on November 04, 2022, 07:12:19 AM
I've been posting my experience listening through the Mozart Piano Sonatas on the listening thread. I went through the Zacharias set (originally EMI) dipping into van Oort and Brautigam to hear fortepiano performances, and some of the fantasias and other miscellaneous pieces that are not included in the Zacharias set.

The received wisdom I started with was that they are relatively insignificant pieces, not nearly as interesting as Mozart's Piano Concerti, not nearly as important as Beethoven's Piano Sonatas, unworthy of Mozart's genius. That didn't hold up. They vary in level of ambition and scale, but I a lot to enjoy in them, including ingenious counterpoint and passage work, poignant harmonies, compelling slow movements, and moments of great intensity. It was a genuine pleasure to listen to them, and Zacharias' recordings are utterly superb. I found van Oort Mozart style also particularly appeals to me.

Imho this is a case of received wisdom being bollocks on stilts. Mozart's Piano Sonatas are as much an expression of, and product of, his genius as his Piano Concertos, albeit on a different scale and with a different purpose. As for the comparison with Beethoven, it's moot. Mozart's upbringing, personality and aesthetic were very different from Beethoven's. It's apples and oranges, really. FWIW, I find myself listening to complete cycles of Mozart sonatas from start to finish far more frequently than to Beethoven cycles, and not only because they are fewer and shorter, but because once I start I cannot stop, which is not the case with Beethoven.

Also, I am very glad that you loved the Zacharias set. If I were to take with me on the proverbial island just one set (which I could do only with a gun pointed at my head), this would be my pick.
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

vers la flamme

Quote from: Florestan on November 04, 2022, 07:40:00 AMFWIW, I find myself listening to complete cycles of Mozart sonatas from start to finish far more frequently than to Beethoven cycles, and not only because they are fewer and shorter, but because once I start I cannot stop, which is not the case with Beethoven.

Agreed—but I do wish there were more time in the day to spend with both of these composers' excellent piano sonata cycles.

Jo498

I'd say that to deny  how much greater their overall achievement is, is underestimating the piano concertos.

Mozart took the (piano) concerto genre from comparably modest scale and scope it had with the Bach sons etc. and transformed it and created about 20 great works, still all different from each other. He did nothing like this with the piano sonata. The sonatas are all good, there are some remarkable ones (like the c minor or the last one) but Mozart himself apparently cared so little about the genre (or there was just very little demand) that after K 333 he only wrote a handful, one of which is a tiny sonatina (545).
Apparently the K numbers of the earlier ones are off, the earliest six stem already from 1775 (their revised edition K numbers are in the 180s, not 280s) and 330-333 might be as early as 1778 or as late as 1782). If this dating is correct, the earliest set is among the most accomplished works of that time; I still find the violin concerti and a few symphonies from that period more interesting.

Anyway, as a body of work they don't come close to Mozart's piano concertos or Beethoven's piano sonatas either within each composers oeuvre or in the history of the genre.
Interestingly, the grandest sonatas are all from the period of the great piano concertos, namely K 457 c minor as well as the two pianos K 448 and the 4 hands K 497

They are good, some even great because Mozart is generally very good, regardless of genre, but I don't think he did anything as special here as with many the piano concertos or a lot of the mature chamber. music, the last 4 symphonies etc.
Tout le malheur des hommes vient d'une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos, dans une chambre.
- Blaise Pascal