Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Recording locations: Decca Studios, West Hampstead, London, September 1954 (Mozart); Sofiensaal, Vienna, Austria, April 1961 (Baermann); Grosser Saal, Musikverein, Vienna, Austria, June 1953 (Brahms)

This recording forms part of a series of 10 reissues celebrating the glorious Decca recordings from the 1950s-1970s of the Wiener Oktett (Vienna Octet), made up of key principals from the Wiener Philharmoniker and the Vienna Symphony Orchestra.

Both Clarinet Quintets on this disc are late works of the respective composers and both were inspired by key clarinetists of their time: Mozart’s by Anton Stadler, Brahms’s by Richard Mühlfeld. Each of these versions represents the first recordings of these pieces by the Wiener Oktett, with Alfred Boskovsky, one of its members, as solo clarinetist. Heinrich Joseph Baermann was a soldier turned oboist turned clarinettist and is now remembered for a single work – an Adagio, published in 1926 as a work by Wagner. It was so described when this 1961 recording was first issued.

The Brahms and Mozart recordings here make their first appearance on Decca CD. This release is accompanied by extensive notes on the lineage of these pieces, a brief history of the evolution of clarinet playing and documentation on the musicians by renowned commentator Tully Potter.

“timelessly fresh – their sense of tradition lightly worn” Gramophone

“here is a winner ; the strings play, throughout, as beautifully as the clarinet” [Brahms] Gramophone

“Boskovsky’s performance is round-toned, fluent, musical, and without vibrato” [Mozart] Gramophone

Recording location: Sofiensaal, Vienna, Austria, April 1961 (KV 136, KV 334); September 1962 (KV 287); October 1963 (KV 247); October 1964 (KV 205, KV 290)

This recording forms part of a series of 10 reissues celebrating the glorious Decca recordings from the 1950s-1970s of the Wiener Oktett (Vienna Octet), made up of key principals from the Wiener Philharmoniker and the Vienna Symphony Orchestra.

Those who campaign against background music in shops, restaurants, hotel lobbies and lifts do not have history on their side. A whole corpus of marvellous music, including the delightful Mozart Divertimenti on these discs, is not intended for serious listening. Its original performances were certainly given against a hum of conversation and probably in the open air.

These glorious Wiener Oktett performances represent the Wiener Oktett’s stereo recordings of these pieces, with the ensemble led by Anton Fietz (1926-2010). (The ensemble’s earlier recordings of selected Mozart Divertimenti, led by Willi Boskovsky will be released in December 2010 under the title “Mozart from a Golden Age”.)

The recordings of the Divertimenti KV 136 and No. 15 in B flat make their first international appearance on Decca CD and the release is accompanied by extensive and probing notes on the music and the performers by renowned commentator Tully Potter.

The multi award winning Mozart album recorded for ASV, unavailable for several years with accompaniment from the London Mozart Players, directed by Jane Glover.

The cheapest, most attractively presented and most comprehensive single disc (78 minutes) of Dennis Brain in today’s market.

Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, Dittersdorf, Dukas and an excerpt from the Hoffnung Music Festival, 1956.

Newly re-mastered.

‘He was innately musical in a way which defies description or analysis. He shaped phrases with an instinctive rightness that seemed inevitable. Technical problems did not exist for him. He had tamed the most notoriously intractable of all instruments to be his obedient servant and raised it again to sing the song the sirens sang.’ Walter Legge

Recording locations: Grosser Saal, Musikverein, Vienna, Austria, June 1950 (KV 334), September 1952 (KV 247); Brahmssaal, Musikverein, Vienna, Austria, April 1955 (KV 287); Sofiensaal, Vienna, Austria, October 1957 (KV 113)

This recording forms part of a series of 10 reissues celebrating the glorious Decca recordings from the 1950s-1970s of the Wiener Oktett (Vienna Octet), made up of key principals from the Wiener Philharmoniker and the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. Five titles were released in September and the remaining five are released this month.

This release forms a companion to the 2CD set of stereo recordings of the Mozart Divertimenti performed by the Vienna Octet (Decca Eloquence 4802394). The personnel for the earlier recordings of Nos. 10, 15 and 17 differs, led by Willi Boskovsky (witness his superb solo violin playing in No. 15) in these recordings and Anton Fietz in the later versions. They are time-honoured performances, from a truly golden era of Mozart performance, here receiving their first international release on Decca CD. The 1959 stereo recording of Mozart’s first Divertimento in E flat, KV 113, representing Mozart’s first use of clarinets, receives its first release on CD; even in its LP lifetime it was only issued once, on a 45rpm EP record, in both mono and stereo formats. Review publications were in raptures about the release of No. 15, Malcolm McDonald writing in Gramophone (August 1956) concluding his review with the words: ‘If there is a much better Mozart record in the catalogues than this, I would like to hear it.’

The engaging notes to this release, as for all those in this Decca Eloquence Wiener Oktett series, are provided by Tully Potter.

Experiencing the Australian Chamber Orchestra and their leader Richard Tognetti in concert has been described in The Times as 'like taking a swig of a vitamin drink'. This is the first of two discs on BIS of Mozart's violin concertos. Contributing to this is the fact that the strings (both soloist and orchestra) play on gut strings, while the wind players perform on replicas of instruments from Mozart's time.

Tognetti has been the leader and artistic director of the ACO for more than 20 years.

Recording location: Sofiensaal, Vienna, Austria, October 1956 (KV 498, 452), June 1957 (Beethoven), September 1962 (M. Haydn), October 1963 (KV 581), October 1964 (KV 99)

This recording forms part of a series of 10 reissues celebrating the glorious Decca recordings from the 1950s-1970s of the Wiener Oktett (Vienna Octet), made up of key principals from the Wiener Philharmoniker and the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. Five titles were released in September and the remaining five are released this month.

Receiving their first international release on CD are the Mozart Clarinet Trio, his Cassation (written when the composer was a mere thirteen!), and the piano-and-wind Quintets of Mozart and Beethoven. The ‘soloists’ within the chamber ensemble – if, as such, one might identify them – are one of the Vienna Octet’s founders, Alfred Boskovsky, and the Octet’s ‘house’ pianist, Walter Panhofer. The mellow writing for the clarinet in both the Mozart Quintets was inspired by the playing of Anton Stadler. This anthology is also unique in that it affords us the only recording on which Willi Boskovsky played the viola – in the ‘Kegelstatt’ Trio. Concluding this anthology is the delightful G major Divertimento by Michael Haydn (Joseph’s younger brother). Found in the British Museum and edited by the Vienna Octet’s bassist, it was often used by the group as a concert opener.

After a brief absence from the concert platform, Hélène Grimaud is back and presenting a brand new solo recital programme, which she will take on a world-wide tour during the upcoming concert season.

The pianist has conceived another programme of works spanning a wide range of emotions and styles, yet all linked by their origin in that singular musical line of succession: the great composers of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Her new album bears the title Résonance, reflecting Grimaud’s imaginative approach to this stimulating compilation of masterpieces.

Hélène Grimaud brings all her artistic maturity and a perfect balance between intellect and emotion to bear on highly dramatic sonatas by Mozart – the A minor K.310 – Liszt and Berg, leavened by Bartók’s irresistible Romanian Folk Dances.

For Grimaud the keystone here is Alban Berg’s hyper-charged, ultra-romantic Opus 1. In this highly concentrated work, the fascinating interrelationships, resonances, between the composers and pieces are summarized and condensed. “This is a music drama in the miniature form of a single-movement sonata,” comments Grimaud, “a maximum of expression that seems to emanate directly from the heart – contained within a piece of incredibly clear structure.”