Tír Na HiFi

DaveF wrote:

That is an interesting one Dave; I don't think that I have any Mozart played by the Freiburgers.

Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No. 2....





....one of my favourite Piano Concertos.

fergus wrote:

jaybee wrote:this got a first spin last night....

truly beautiful....

Gluck - Orpheo et Eurydice

That has long been on my Wish List; I must buy it!!

That recording was planned for Andreas Scholl who shortly before the sessions started decided to move to DECCA. HM didn´t have another countertenor at the time, so they called in Bernarda Fink.

Jose Echenique wrote:

fergus wrote:

jaybee wrote:this got a first spin last night....

truly beautiful....

Gluck - Orpheo et Eurydice

That has long been on my Wish List; I must buy it!!

That recording was planned for Andreas Scholl who shortly before the sessions started decided to move to DECCA. HM didn´t have another countertenor at the time, so they called in Bernarda Fink.

That's interesting! I can't imagine it!

I never warmed to Scholl... I bought his Vivaldi Stabat Mater , but I wasn't a fan....

fergus wrote:

DaveF wrote:

That is an interesting one Dave; I don't think that I have any Mozart played by the Freiburgers.

I do have a few Mozart symphonies conducted by Jacobs, the Freiburgers are a magnificent outfit. sadly, I don't have that recording.

Seán wrote:
I do have a few Mozart symphonies conducted by Jacobs, the Freiburgers are a magnificent outfit. sadly, I don't have that recording.

Any recommendations for the Freiburgers playing Mozart Seán?

Lovely relaxing music for a lazy Saturday morning....

Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture....





....much maligned but always pleasurable listening for me; I think that it sonically depicts a story very well.

I've been listening a great deal over the past couple of months to Adam Fischer's marvellous cycle of Mozart symphonies with the Danish National Chamber Orchestra on the Da Capo label.  This is a really wonderful achievement on Fischer's part.  Many complete cycles prduce fine versions of Symphonies 25 to 41 (admittedly the masterpieces in Mozart's symphonic canon) but fail to dig deeply into the earlier works.  Fischer's notable achievement is to incorporate a remarkable freshness and vitality into his performances of all of these works.  You can select a CD at random from any period of Mozart's life and you find yourself swept away and utterly engaged.  The chamber orchestra on these recordings use modern instruments but the performances are very much influenced by historically influenced work.  Fischer is very good at pinpointing all kinds of inner details in this music - the woodwind section is particularly noteworthy - without disrupting the musical flow of the piece.  

Completely satisfactory cycles of the Mozart symphonies can be hard to find and this is one of the very best I have yet heard. Trevor Pinnock's and Karl Bohm's cycles present two different sound worlds but both are very enjoyable.  However, the earlier works sound a little academic and pedastrian in Pinnock's hands whilst Bohm's BPO tends to gloss over the fine details and tempos are a little sluggish.  (They are both very good, though, from Symphony 25 onwards.)  I remain very fond of Hans Graf's undervalued cycle with the Salzburg Mozarteum on Capriccio which sequences late, middle and early symphonies on the same disc and recall the transparency and energy of Pinnock's interpretations whilst retainng modern instruments.  But Fischer's set is my new benchmark for a complete set of Mozart's symphonies.