Mozart: Adagio & Fugue in C minor for Strings, K546 - CD

In September 2011 the Chiaroscuro Quartet released its debut CD of music by Mozart and Schubert to critical acclaim. The disc was awarded a ‘Choc de l’Année’ by the French music magazine Classica and was highly praised by Télérama and the Strad magazine. It was chosen as 'Chamber Choice' in the December 2011 issue of BBC Music Magazine which described the playing as “period-instrument playing of consummate virtuosity”.

Future engagements for the Quartet include a return to Aix-en-Provence followed by a series of concerts throughout Sweden. They will return to the UK for a series of concerts broadcast on BBC Radio 3, their Edinburgh Festival debut and appearances at venues across London.

Formed in 2005, the Chiaroscuro Quartet performs music of the Classical era on period instruments informed by a historical approach. Recent UK concert highlights include appearances at Wigmore Hall in London, York Early Music Centre, The Sage Gateshead (recorded for BBC Radio 3) and a residency in Aldeburgh.

This is the union of two ZZT artists for a disc that includes an original work (the Sonata in D major) and transcriptions for two pianos.

Recorded on two historic instruments from the collection of Edwin Beunk, this disc is an operatic and symphonic conversation. It is also the illustration of the highly fruitful collaboration of two singular pianists as well as a new recording with Yury Martynov, who earned a 'Choc' de Classica for his Beethoven-Liszt disc.

With one exception, a short piece by Jeanne Rivier entitled “Grave et Presto”, all the music on this new CD has either been arranged or composed for or by the acclaimed Dutch Saxophone ensemble known as the Amstel Quartet.

Featured composers range from Bach, Mozart and Brahms through to Ravel, Samuel Barber, and the popular contemporary composer Michael Nyman.

The four musicians that make up the Amstel Quartet first came together in 1997 after a tour with the National Youth Orchestra. Over the years since its inception the group has been the recipient of several prizes including the Concert Artists Guild Management Award, The Kersjes Prize, and the Gaudeamus Interpreters Concours. The Amstel Quartet have released 7 CDs to date most of which are available on Amstel Records.

Recorded live at the Philharmonie, Berlin February 28, March 2, March 3 2002.

The Israeli violinist Itzhak Perlman was born in Tel Aviv on 31st August 1945. With total disregard for the physical obstacles placed in his way as a childhood victim of polio, he has forged a glittering international career as a soloist, chamber musician, pedagogue and latterly as a conductor. Having emigrated to America, he studied at the JuilliardSchool and made his professional debut at Carnegie Hall in 1963.

He made his first recordings for EMI in 1971. His vast repertoire stretches from the solo Bach Sonatas and Partitas, via major chamber works, through to most of the major orchestral repertory. The EMI Classics catalogue boasts concertos by Barber, Beethoven, Brahms, Bruch, Dvorak, Goldmark, Korngold, Mendelssohn, Prokofiev, Saint-Saens, Shostakovitch, Tchaikovsky and Wieniawski; as well as Perlman’s celebrated recording of Vivaldi's Four Seasons.

In recent years, Itzhak Perlman has started a successful conducting career whilst continuing that of an international soloist. He has made highly successful guest appearances with the English Chamber Orchestra, the London Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony and the Philadelphia Orchestra. He currently also holds guest positions with two American orchestras: Principle Guest Conductor with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and Music Advisor to the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra.

This release is Perlman’s debut for EMI as conductor and also, amazingly, the first time he has recorded the music of Mozart.

However spectacular the Salzburg Festival may be, and however indebted to international stars, it is also remarkable for the sense of continuity it has shown over the years. This is a fact tinged with melancholy when one considers the half-century in which Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau played a determining role at the Festival as singer, reciter and as conductor. His last concert in Salzburg, in which he conducted the Mozarteum Orchestra, is now available in the CD series FESTIVAL DOCUMENTS. In a concert devoted entirely to Mozart, the pianist Konstantin Lifschitz was not just a soloist but a real partner in dialogue in the Piano Concerto K 456. The concert begins in solemn fashion with the Adagio and Fugue K 546 and ends in elation with the “Italian” Symphony K 202.

In sum, what differentiates Salieri from Mozart? Talent, genius? Invention, imagination? Let us think about two other Mozarts in the history of art: Pushkin and Vermeer. They have the same sovereign elegance, the same art of dancers to whose eye naturalness is more than a virtue - indeed a condition of life. They have the same fluidity in the sequence of events, the same apparent limited means, the same grace in motion. The same precise cruelty, the same tendreness. They bring the same tears to he eyes, welling up from the same place.

The Wiener Mozartisten consists of a core group of 13 Vienna Philharmonic members and this is added to with invited first class Viennese musicians according to the repertoire. Their aim is to nurture and maintain the Viennese music-making ideals.