Mozart: Non più, tutto ascoltai - Non temer, amato bene, K490

For the first time complete on CD: substantial, large-scale concert arias, in which a solo instrument plays a counterpart against the voice, a kind of Sinfonia Concertante with an instrument and voice as soloists.

Mozart had great respect for the Johann Christian Bach (the youngest son of J.S.) and even in his youth copies and arranged works of him.The influence therefore is obvious.

Beautiful period-instrument performance by the Solamente Naturali, Didier Talpain, who already made more and highly acclaimed recordings for Brilliant: Hummel: Mathilde and C.P.E. Bach Hamburg Symphonies.

The origin of the dialogue between a solo voice and several obbligati instruments dates from the early baroque period (1600), and probably emerged from the hum drum setting of the market square where a singer would perform to the accompaniment of a few wind instruments. More refined relations of this musical form soon could be found in sacred and operatic works. This CD contains the complete obbligato arias by master and pupil – J.C Bach and Mozart.Therefore we can hear examples of the pre classical (1750-75) and the classical period (1775-1820). There is one undisputed masterpiece here - Mozart’s Ch’io mi scordi di te? K505 for soprano and piano.The aria is an expression of personal sadness. Nancy Storace, the first Susanna in Figaro, had left Mozart and returned to London. This is no operatic love affair gone wrong, but a real life one. Mozart himself is represented by the piano, Nancy by the stunning soprano role.

Mozart’s friend and teacher J.C. Bach has a world premiere recording on this CD. His aria Sventura in van mi lagno of 1773 is an impressive virtuoso work for high soprano with two obbligato horns. One the players J.C Bach wrote for was none other than Giovanni Punto, hence the extremely challenging nature of the horn part for a natural horn.

Compared to Elisabeth Grümmer’s rank as a singer, her recordings are shamefully few in number, giving these radio recordings a special documentary significance. “Whoever has heard Elisabeth Grümmer singing cannot forget the way this lovely voice, at once ethereal and yet full sounding, effortlessly flows along,” wrote Lafranco Rasponi.

While Kiri Te Kanawa was still preparing for that career-defining debut as the Countess in Le nozze di Figaro, she made her first Mozart disc under Colin Davis: a collection of sacred music, including the Solemn Vespers, KV 339, with its serene setting of ‘Laudate Dominum’, and Exsultate, jubilate. The Countess became the singer’s calling-card, and she repeated the role immediately in San Francisco and at Glyndebourne. The thwarted Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni followed, again under Davis at Covent Garden, before Kiri took her Countess to the Met in New York in February 1976, and sang her first Fiordiligi in Paris, in a production by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle. The Paris Opera was also the location of Kiri’s debut as Pamina in Die Zauberflöte in 1977. Her leap into superstardom came when she sang at the wedding of Prince Charles and Diana in July 1981. The previous month she had committed her Countess to disc in a classic recording for Decca under Georg Solti.

This collection brings together for the first time on disc, Dame Kiri’s complete Mozart recital discs for Decca (with György Fischer) and Philips (with Sir Colin Davis and Jeffrey Tate). Included too are two arias from her celebrated recording of Le nozze di Figaro with Sir Georg Solti, an aria from her sublime recording of Così fan tutte with James Levine (for Deutsche Grammophon) as well as sacred arias, and sacred music conducted by Neville Marriner and Colin Davis.