Mozart: Oiseaux, si tous les ans, K307

Mozart created masterpieces in virtually all the established genres. We know him as symphonist, writer of a great many concertos, especially for piano, and a unique and very productive opera composer. His sublime chamber music was written for numerous ensembles, and he composed dozens of the most beautiful serenades and divertimentos. But as a lied composer he is perhaps rather neglected, perhaps because in the minds of many music lovers the German lied is a phenomenon that came into being with Franz Schubert some decades after Mozart’s death in 1791. In fact, Mozart wrote about thirty lieder, fourteen of which were published during his lifetime. It is hardly too much to say that he was also the most important lied composer of his day.

The soprano Gemma Bertagnolli compares the music of Mozart to a country; “I feel welcome in this place of grandeur and miniature, of rigour and frivolity, of love and terror, of truth and jest.” She performs these works with passionate elegance.

Mozart’s songs are surprisingly varied in many ways. Although there isn’t a great number of them, they date from all periods of the composer’s short life and are widely diverse in character, from simple strophic charmers such as ‘Komm, lieber Mai’ (Sehnsucht nach dem Frühlinge) to extended and intensely serious utterances such as those he wrote for the Freemasons (Die ihr des unermesslichen Weltalls, from Eine kleine deutsche Kantate). They also vary in language: most are in German but he also set French and Italian texts.

All are represented here, sung by two of Britain’s most popular and outstanding singers.

Internationally-acclaimed harpist, Sandrine Chatron, playing the beautiful 18th century harp by Sébastien Érard, takes us on a musical journey that recreates the intimate atmosphere of a musical salon at the time of Marie-Antoinette.

In this third recording in the Cité de la Musique series, Sandrine Chatron plays the very rare and 18th-century harp by Sébastien Érard. The programme recreates the intimate atmosphere of a musical salon at the time of Queen Marie-Antoinette. It includes works by Gluck, Mozart and Gossec, as well as world premiere recordings of compositions by Dauvergne, Saint-George and Krumpholtz.

The music selected illustrates the diversity of repertory linked with the figure of Queen Marie-Antoinette, a music-lover, performer, inspiration, or patron of the arts. She helped several composers in their careers, including Gluck, her teacher, and Grétry, both of whom are found on this recording with other composers from the time of Marie-Antoinette.

Mozart loved the human voice, which he used as an instrument of musical expression throughout his compositional career from the age of six or seven. His Lieder, written largely in response to requests and commissions from acquaintances, friends and publishers deal with everyday subjects such as friendship and romance but also with social and political occasions such as the Emperor Joseph II’s Turkish campaign. Some were written in connection with Mozart’s activities as a freemason. Only one, the bitter-sweet Das Veilchen (The Violet) is set to the words of a major poet, Goethe. The many miniature masterpieces to be heard on this recording include Komm, liebe Zither, komm (Come, dear Zither), a musical precursor, with mandolin accompaniment, of Don Giovanni’s serenade Deh vieni alla finestra, the idyllic Der Zauberer (The Sorcerer) and the dramatically graphic Als Luise die Briefe ihres ungetreuen Liebhabers verbrannte (When Louisa burned the letters of her unfaithful lover).

Ute Ziemer was a pupil of the late Elizabeth Schwarzkopf. “Only five days before her death we worked together at her home in Schruns in Austria on lieder by Schubert, and I hope that these recordings would have received her smiling ‘thumbs-up’ …her greatest mark of approval.”