Mozart: Lungi da te, mio bene (from Mitridate, Rè di Ponto, KV87)

One of the most peerless Mozartians of our time, Felicity Lott has been one of the foremost sopranos to essay the composer’s major roles in the opera house. Complementing these is her magnificent disc of concert arias as well as Mozart’s beloved motet Exsultate, jubilate, and arias from two of the composer’s lesser-known operas. The recording was made in 1989 shortly after her mesmerizing performance of some of this material at the London ‘Proms’. Jane Glover and the London Mozart Players provide stylish and sympathetic support. A multi-award winning album, it is now available readily on Eloquence.

Following on from her recent appearance on BBC Radio 3's 'In Tune', the acclaimed soprano Christiane Karg performed with Glyndbourne Touring Opera in the 2010/2011 season. An interview with her appeared in the May issue of BBC Magazine this year. This compilation takes the listener on an emotional roller-coaster ride.

The multi award winning Mozart album recorded for ASV, unavailable for several years with accompaniment from the London Mozart Players, directed by Jane Glover.

Of the various wind instruments, it was the natural horn which proved to be the one most favoured by Mozart in his solo instrumental music. Four concertos and a plentiful quantity of chamber scores in which the horn plays the leading role testify to that.Without doubt all this derived from the friendship between the composer and Joseph Leutgeb, a virtuoso player almost 25 years his senior, and who, on a number of occasions, ended up as the target for well-meaning jokes and taunts from Mozart, as is explained in the booklet to this disc. Teunis van der Zwart is one of the world's leading specialists on his instrument today, and here he is joined by other members from the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century for the chamber music (the Quintet, A Musical Joke, the duos), and by the full orchestra conducted by Frans Brüggen for the Horn Concerto, KV477 and for an aria from Mitridate, re di Ponto, which also features the starry vocal talents of North American soprano Claron McFadden. In recordings made between 2006 and 2008 Brüggen and the musicians of his now legendary ensemble once more prove themselves to be on magnificent form in creating a further disc of reference.

Composers develop their own voice and personality; singers develop their own vocal character and colour. This beautiful and unusual recital disc by Bill Barnewitz, principal horn of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, explores the voice of a special instrument and of a particular musician. Bill offers chamber works which feature the horn either as a solo personality or integrated into an ensemble. There are songs in which the horn is included, in its own right, as a partner to the voice. Bill also performs two of his own transcriptions in which the horn replaces the singer, taking on both the original voice part and the text. Throughout, Bill, like an operatic interpreter, assumes a variety of roles and uses the full expressive resources of his instrument to bring a variety of personalities to life.

Long Road Home is a passionate and personal project for Bill Barnewitz. In 2001, he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease, not, in his own words, “a welcome event in my life.” As he has adjusted to the permanence of his affliction, he has met others coping with the disease, found many who are working in support capacities such as research, education and cure, and many more who want to help. Long Road Home is a collaboration of those in the latter group, fellow-musicians and friends who have devoted themselves to this project, to make an enjoyable recording that also raises money to support a worthy cause.

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.