Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Beautifully packaged, and at budget price.

Full track-lists and synopses in English, German and French.

Otto Klemperer was one of the greatest conductors of the 20th century along with Wilhelm Furtwängler, Bruno Walter and Arturo Toscanini. His period in Cologne from 1954 to 1959 was considered to be one of the most fruitful and exciting of his career, and it was during this time that EMI’s classical producer Walter Legge tracked and signed him to the company following the departure of Herbert von Karajan.

His critically acclaimed recordings with the Philharmonia followed. This live studio recording from the WDR in Cologne has never been issued before. Klemperer’s conducting of Brahms’s Requiem, one of the cornerstones of the choral repertoire, achieves true greatness.

Gramophone Magazine said of his 1961 recording, ‘a conductor whose rugged feeling for the music pays colossal dividends’ sums up this 1956 account.

Both Elisabeth Grümmer (soprano) and Hermann Prey (baritone) were internationally renowned and highly respected.

The CD contains two interesting ‘extras’ – Mozart’s delightful Serenata notturna from 1954 and a rare rehearsal sequence of the Requiem, both issued for the first time.

WDR’s remastering is of very high quality aided by the excellent preservation of the original tapes.

There can be few, if any, musicians who have singlehandedly done so much in the establishment of resources for musical performance than Sir Thomas Beecham.

During WWI he conducted and supported financially both the Hallé and London Symphony Orchestras and the Royal Philharmonic Society. In 1915 he formed the Beecham Opera Company which trained many young British singers in this field. Eight years later this became the British National Opera Company and was absorbed into Covent Garden in 1932 when Beecham returned to be its Musical Director.

To quote David Cairns “We are nationally and individually a more musically aware people because of him and what he gave us”. A forceful statement, true, but whose life could ever challenge it?

Dissatisfied by conditions and practices, notably the supply of deputies for rehearsals, prevalent in British orchestras, he formed the London Philharmonic Orchestra that same year. Beecham was now able to be at the fulcrum of all developments in music in Britain. WWII put an end to this halcyon period. With Covent Garden shut he travelled, primarily in America, and did not return to Britain until 1944. The London Philharmonic had now become a self-governing body so Beecham, then aged 67, launched the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. This was the orchestra with which he committed to disc so many classic recordings with which EMI Classics marks the 50th anniversary of his passing.

It is true that Beecham had particular favourites in composers – Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, Berlioz, Bizet and Puccini spring immediately to mind; also his love for Handel – even though his performances were always BIG-scale! He was an early champion of Richard Strauss and became a most effective exponent of Sibelius. His name will always be inextricably linked with that of Delius whose music Beecham seemed to know better even than the composer and it is appropriate that they are buried not far apart in the graveyard at St. Peter’s Parish Church, Limpsfield, Surrey.

He was knighted in 1916, the year he succeeded to his father’s baronetcy, and made a Companion of Honour in 1957.This affable, brilliant, usually charming, ever-communicative, quick-witted – even, at times, to the point of cruelty, dedicated conductor was also the most gifted executive musician England has ever produced.

He was fortunate that his grandfather, a chemist, had created the highly successful pharmaceutical manufacturing business which bore his name. His father, who had started in the company whilst still a teenager, was also fond of music so he was prepared to fund his son’s enthusiastic appetite to attend operas and concerts both here and abroad.

Born on 29th April 1879 in St. Helens, he attended public school at Rossall where his talent at the piano became a legend (the only boy ever to have been allowed a grand piano in his study!). From there he briefly attended Oxford (Wadham) but the composition classes, with Charles Wood in London and Moszkowski in Paris, were funded privately. As a conductor he was purely self-taught.

He formed an orchestra in his home town and deputised for Richter at a Hallé concert when his father was mayor. His career path was clear: he would use his financial resources to support the art which he enjoyed with the aim of bringing it to as many as possible.

At the age of 30 he launched the Beecham Symphony Orchestra, all young and carefully chosen. They would tour, play for opera and ballet and give concerts of adventurous music. London duly welcomed him for a season of intensive opera performances and over the next three years introduced many new ones to British audiences, including by Strauss, Delius and the Russians. He also brought Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes starring Nijinsky and Karsavina to the British stage.

After two widely acclaimed Haydn releases, the Jerusalem Quartet now turns to an exploration of Mozart and three distinct periods in his creative life. Haydn is not totally absent from this recording, since the central quartet belongs to the glorious group of six which Mozart, now firmly established in Vienna, dedicated to his elder in 1785. Twelve years earlier, the teenage composer was still amusing himself with the Sammartinian model in the third of his ‘Milanese’ Quartets’ and four years after the ‘Haydn’ set, Mozart abandoned the divertimento style once and for all, presenting in the second of the ‘Prussian’ Quartets a score that radically renewed the practice of chamber music.

The Jerusalem Quartet was founded in 1993, and began its training in Jerusalem, under the direction of the violinist Avi Abramovitch. The young quartet soon became a force to reckon with on the international scene: in 1996 it won First Prize in chamber music at the Jerusalem Academy, and in 1997 a double prize at the Graz International Competition for its performances of works by Kurtág and Bartók. From 1999 to 2001 the quartet received support from the BBC (as BBC New Generation Artists), then in 2003 it was the recipient of the first Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award.

The Jerusalem Quartet is now a regular guest on major European and American concert platforms. It took part in the Vancouver Recital Series, the Verbier Festival and the Robeco Summer Concert Series in Amsterdam. In 2007, it toured in Australia and Japan. It is Musica Viva’s Quartet-in-Residence from 2006 until 2009 (Australia).

The Jerusalem Quartet regularly partners Mitsuko Uchida, Jessye Norman, Daniel Barenboim, Elena Bashkirova, Tabea Zimmermann, Natalia Gutman, Itamar Golan, Boris Pergamenshikov, and the Vermeer and Pražák Quartets. With harmonia mundi, the quartet has recorded works by Dvořák (with Stefan Vladar), Shostakovich, Haydn and Schubert, and has been awarded several international distinctions including a BBC Music Magazine Award for their Shostakovich with Editor’s Choice and BBC Choice for their ‘Death and the Maiden’. The Quartet is grateful to Daniel Barenboim who generously loans Jacqueline du Pré's ‘Sergio Perresson’ cello to Kyril Zlotnikov.

SDG is proud to release its first Mozart CD, recorded live at Cadogan Hall.

This album made the headlines in 2006 as the UK’s first classical “on the night” recording. CDs were made during the second part of the concert for the audience to take home after the concert. This is the first time this CD is commercially released.

Symphonies 39 & 49 are among the last composed by Mozart. They use the full eighteenth-century orchestra, complete with trumpets and timpani.

Symphony 39 (K543) shows Mozart at his most exalted in the orchestral passages, while some passages remain intimate and touching, with more delicate themes. The Minuet features the orchestra’s guest artists, the clarinets, in a waltz-like Trio.

The “Jupiter”, Mozart’s final symphony (no 41, K551), belongs to a sequence of grand ceremonial works in C major.

Typically for Mozart it juxtaposes a number of different contrasting musical characters and ideas, from the formal and aristocratic to the heartfelt and soulful.

In the finale, the composer’s compositional virtuosity is on display. Through the whole runs an extraordinary spirit, a mixture of intellectual excitement, the feeling of a grand design, and a sense of fun.

In her debut for Haenssler, the talented young soprano Juliane Banse is joined by Christoph Poppen. She has selected a highly intelligent recital including arias by Weber, Tchaikovsky, Massenet, Mozart and Puccini. She has distinguished herself not only for the beauty of her singing, but for the depth of her characterisations and deep empathy with the emotional world of the women she is portraying.