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.
