Mozart: Sinfonia Concertante for Violin, Viola & Orchestra in E flat major, K364

“Just a few bars of the neatly sprung opening tutti of Mozart's G major violin concerto K216 are enough to confirm...the tremendous energy and sense of musical purpose that are so characteristic of the Australian Chamber Orchestra and their leader Richard Tognetti...These are modern-instrument performances of great personality and emotional generosity.” The Guardian, 18th November 2010 ****

“It’s not easy being graceful one minute, punchy the next, but the Australian Chamber Orchestra, equipped with gut strings and other period habits, manages with ease on this gripping disc. The cake’s icing is Tognetti...Phrasing and speed control are fresh and thoughtful, cadenzas weighty, textures unfailingly clear. Delightful music-making.” The Times, 27th November 2010 ****

“Tognetti is in total control both as leader and soloist in beautifully nuanced performances of the third and fifth violin concertos...Tuning to a warmer A=430 (rather than standard 440) and using gut strings, they produce a gloriously exciting, tangy edged, alert and playful sound.” The Observer, 26th December 2010

“These are bright, lively performances, on modern instruments but well aware of 18th-century style. The finales of all three works are especially successful..Tognetti and Moore are wonderfully well-matched, and when they play together in parallel their tones make a perfect blend.” Gramophone Magazine, February 2011

“This is a wonderfully refreshing Mozart disc...Tognetti's phrasing is stylish, imaginative but never eccentric, and the orchestral accompaniment is played with an alertness and care over rhythms that produce results that are notably tidy as well as scrupulously shaped....Tognetti's ornamentation and embellishment feel just right too.” International Record Review, December 2010

“When Mozart presents a statement on one instrument and repeats it on the other, their phrasing is perfectly matched; similarly, when they play together, they blend effortlessly. It's like listening to chamber music.” Classic FM Magazine, April 2011 ***

“…Rachel Podger…silvery-toned, subtly nuanced 1739 Pesarinius violin and intent direction of the strings of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment find a genuine eloquence in the Adagio of the otherwise unremarkable G major Concerto. Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante is... a masterpiece unique even in his output for the almost operatic interplay between its solo violin and viola protagonists... Podger's almost 'speaking' line contrasts with the more 'masculine' tones of Pavlo Beznosiuk. Others have wrung even more pathos from the somber Andante, but this scarcely alloys the warmth and life of the reading.” BBC Music Magazine, Christmas 2009 ****

“Podger makes a strong case for Haydn's concertos… the sound has a warm glow that enhances her standpoint that these works are not lightweight nonentities. Slow movements are particularly profound…” Gramophone Magazine, December 2009

“...the OAE accompanies with poise and discretion, allowing Podger's consummate talent to shine through.” The Observer, 29th November 2009

“The First Concerto's opening tutti sets the overall tone of this disc with bright and light phrasing. Renaud Capuçon's… vibrato is tight, never becoming sickly, and he spins an elegantly effortless line in the slow movement, with a wide variety of tone colour.” BBC Music Magazine, August 2009 ***

“His performance here is lithe, graceful and refined, capturing vivacious humour with luminous upper-stringed sparkle, and colouring the slower movements with warm, musical poetry...There is real artistic synergy here: each matches the others gentle poise and warmth, with the velvety depth of the viola setting off the sweet descant of the violin.” Charlotte Gardner, bbc.co.uk, 21st May 2009

“These musicians have all the hallmarks of excellence and it's impossible not to be drawn to their empathy with the rhythmic vivacity and finer sensibilities of the music.” Gramophone Magazine, July 2009

“Capuçon is partnered by the viola player Antoine Tamestit, who perfectly complements his unfailingly musical phrasing without ever slavishly copying it. A fine achievement.” The Guardian, 17th April 2009 ****

“Thomas Zehetmair is altogether more gracious and urbane in performances recorded over a five-year period… His tone is sweet and subtly varied, his phrasing always alive, with those tiny nuances more naturally achieved with the shorter, lighter Classical bow. I enjoyed the darkly majestic Sinfonia concertante... both for the characteristically vivid orchestral contribution and the sensitive interplay between violinist and the attractive, husky-toned viola of Ruth Killus.” Gramophone Magazine, July 2009

“Zehetmair makes an extraordinary sound, small and light and yet able to hold your attention at every moment.” The Telegraph, 21 February 2009

“Complete technical fluidity, at the service of a lively musical imagination, backed up by some superbly shaped orchestral playing under Abbado.” BBC Music Magazine, Proms 2008 *****

“Virtuoso 'violinism' and energising direction notwithstanding, neither Giuliano Carmignola nor Claudio Abbado seems inspired by the B flat Concerto, K207. Nor does slick dispatch do much for the first movement of the D major, K211; but this is not the shape of things to come.
Carmignola steps away from neutrality in the succeeding Andante. The music breathes a life of its own as he ardently inflects its phrases to shape the tension and relaxation of his line which – as elsewhere – he also embellishes. And pauses are decorated with lead-ins. Here is personal involvement that from now on is present in full flower.
It's a flowering for Abbado too, as he summons a passionate advocacy that takes in the implications of key and time signatures on atmosphere and pacing, uses dynamic markings and intuitive accents to keep rhythm aloft, adjusts the timbres of the wind instruments (oboes are vivid or subdued, horns play in alto or basso) to suit the colouration he requires, and aerates the orchestral fabric for maximum clarity. Conducting and interpretation are in the realms of greatness – and no mistake.
In the solo concertos, Carmignola is recorded with varying but small changes of volume. His positioning is steadier in the Sinfonia concertante; and so is his placement with the artistic, if slightly reticent, Danusha Waskiewicz. Nevertheless, their skilled dovetailing and intelligent use of tone colour speak of symbiosis. Abbado remains primus inter pares, watchful, supportive and fortifying. Pity the sound isn't always clear and detailed. Superlative music making deserves consistently superlative recording.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Mozart-conducting and interpretation are in the realms of greatness.” Gramophone Magazine, September 2008

“These recordings were made at Bologna in 2007 and must be ranked among the finest in this repertoire, whether on period or modern instruments. Impeccable recording.” Penguin Guide, 2011 edition

“In Carmignola, [Abbado] has an ideal soloist, prepared to rethink these delightful works, as well as the great Sinfonia Concertante, with violin and viola solos in the light of scholarly research and reappraisal. The results are little short of revelatory, especially in the concertos’ and Sinfonia’s fast outer movements. They scamper along at Carmignola’s vivacious tempi and provoke dazzling feats of virtuosity from the orchestral accompaniments, which sometimes sound polite. The soloist’s tone is bright and sweet (but never saccharine), and Abbado’s Bolognese band is already clearly a crack ensemble — the principal viola, Danusha Waskiewicz, brings lustrous tone and bravura to the Sinfonia’s second solo part, and it is a long time since I have heard such exhilarating, devil-may-care playing in the famous “Turkish” Rondo of the A major concerto. A marvellous set.” Sunday Times, 20th July 2008 ****

“[The conducting is] almost miraculous, with its exuberant, lively tempi, perfectly balanced lighter-than-air textures, and exquisite attention to the smallest details of phrasing and articulation. The sense of the players listening as intently to each other as they do to following Abbado's directions is obvious in every bar... There are a few moments in the violin concertos, and especially in the Sinfonia Concertante, when the music could benefit from a little more room to breathe, though Abbado and his soloists do show that the slow movement of the Sinfonia doesn't need to be taken as an indulgent adagio to weave its magical spell.” The Guardian, 18th July 2008 ****

“Carmignola, renowned for his Baroque, is a clean interpreter of Mozart's violin concertos, his sweet-sounding strings flitting in well-matched dialogue with the attentive period detailing of Abbado's young ensemble.” The Times, 19th July 2008 ****

“Listen to the start of the great Sinfonia Concertante, here replete with an energy which doesn't preclude sensitivity of phrasing or detail of instrumental colour. …Fischer and Nikolic emerge from the opening tutti with a sense of wonder, marking this is one of Mozart's most deeply felt inspirations. ...their interplay in the Adagio is a profound delight.” BBC Music Magazine, January 2008 *****

“In the Sinfonia – one of Mozart’s first masterpieces, written in 1779, on the threshold of his entrance into the pantheon of genius – soloists, orchestra and conductor emphasise the majestic, symphonic dimensions of the opening movement, and they duet rapturously like operatic lovers in the sublime Andante. If you have the solo concerto discs, you won’t want to miss this” Sunday Times, November 2007