Between tradition and modernity - Víkingur Ólafsson's repertoire is extremely extensive and spans several centuries. In his previous recordings, contemporary composers such as Philip Glass play just as important a role as the early music by Bach, or the impressionistic sounds of Debussy. He himself describes such a diverse repertoire in a simple way: "I see all music as contemporary music, I don’t make a distinction". Now, on his new and thus fourth Deutsche Grammophon album, the Icelandic pianist covers another century with Mozart and his contemporaries. At first glance, the program seems a bit thrown together: In addition to various piano works by Mozart, you’ll find selected works by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and Joseph Haydn, as well as their Italian colleagues Baldassare Galuppi and Domenico Cimarosa who pop up in between. However it quickly becomes clear that Ólafsson is once again immersing himself in a new musical era and wants to draw as much as possible from it before presenting it to the listeners. And this is done amazingly well! The pianist manages to reflect the German-Italian influence of the early and high classical period, in the midst of the 18th century, in a uniquely versatile way. In addition to extreme precision, there is also an impressive lightness to his playing at the same time. Another special feature of this album are Ólafsson's self-penned arrangements of Mozart's Adagio in E-flat major, the third movement from the original String Quartet No. 3 in G minor, K. 516, as well as to Cimarosa's Sonatas No. 42 and No. 55. Here one can discover the performing musician in the role of co-creator at the same time - Ólafsson deals with the music with hair-pin precision and provides it with his personal sensual Icelandic, and, indeed, contemporary touch. © Lena Germann/Qobuz

Mozart meets the accordion and bandoneon? A rarity, perhaps! Richard Galliano finds, however, that the music of Mozart, as well as that of Bach, sounds especially beautiful on his favourite instrument…

Serenades, Dances, Marches is the second volume in Philips' Complete Mozart Edition, available as part of a large box containing the whole of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's output and as a single item, as here. Though its 13 discs are the same as in the 1990 edition, its 2000 repackaging has a cleaner, more attractive design. Mozart's serenades, dances, and marches -- his "pop" music -- contains a decent amount of his most elegant music along with a healthy dose of material where it seems he is merely going through the motions. The ratio of quality versus quantity is roughly 2 to 3 in the Serenades and even lower in the other music. Mozart's orchestral serenades are heard here in recordings made in the 1980s by Neville Marriner and the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, whereas his orchestral dance music and marches are represented in recordings of 1960s vintage performed by Willi Boskovsky and the Wiener Mozart Ensemble. Marriner's recordings of this kind set a new standard for performances of Mozart as he utilizes a configuration of the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields that reflects the relative dimensions of the bands Mozart himself led. While plenty of ensembles up to that time had done so for J.S. Bach and some of Mozart's contemporaries, Mozart was then relatively new ground for period-minded groups to break. Not all of these recordings remain fresh as a daisy; early digital technology was not particularly kind to string groups, and in some cases Marriner is less than inspired. But the Academy is wonderful in pieces like the seldom-recorded Galimathias musicum, a Mozartian buffet dished up in the composer's 10th year demonstrating that certain aspects of his signature style were already in place at such a tender age. Marriner is rightly regarded as a master interpreter of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, which he has recorded several times over the years -- his version is clean, energetic, and stylish. The analog recordings of Boskovsky in the little dances and marches that so readily populate Mozart's work list present the music with a modern, though small, orchestra, doing this music no harm whatsoever. What it benefits from is Boskovsky's expert grasp of Viennese style, its sense of lift and pacing. Obtaining Serenades, Dances, Marches will add all of Mozart's efforts in these genres to one's library, but should not preclude the additional acquisition of single-disc issues that hit the high points of this literature in performances perhaps more outstanding than these. For many to most, the latter option would be the better way to go, but for libraries and private collections where Mozart's whole output in these areas is required, Serenades, Dances, Marches more than adequately meets the need.© TiVo

Karl Böhm's recording of the Mozart symphonies with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra is among the most respected and beloved sets of this important body of work. Böhm's set was the first complete recording of the symphonies (including several that subsequent scholarship has shown to be written by other composers and misattributed to Mozart) and it remains a substantial achievement because of the conductor's stature as a Mozartian and because of the enthusiastic and refined playing of the Berlin Philharmonic. The performances reflect the aesthetic of the mid-20th century; the orchestra is large, with a fuller, more Romantic sound than had become standard by the end of the century, when historically informed performance practice produced leaner, more limber performances of Mozart, with more scrupulous attention to the repeats in some movements. The sound quality of the performances recorded by Deutsche Grammophon between 1958 and 1968 is not entirely consistent, but it is never less than adequate and is often excellent. Listeners who prefer their Mozart performed on period instruments may want to look elsewhere, but for general listeners, it would be hard to go wrong with these performances.© TiVo

Between tradition and modernity - Víkingur Ólafsson's repertoire is extremely extensive and spans several centuries. In his previous recordings, contemporary composers such as Philip Glass play just as important a role as the early music by Bach, or the impressionistic sounds of Debussy. He himself describes such a diverse repertoire in a simple way: "I see all music as contemporary music, I don’t make a distinction". Now, on his new and thus fourth Deutsche Grammophon album, the Icelandic pianist covers another century with Mozart and his contemporaries. At first glance, the program seems a bit thrown together: In addition to various piano works by Mozart, you’ll find selected works by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and Joseph Haydn, as well as their Italian colleagues Baldassare Galuppi and Domenico Cimarosa who pop up in between. However it quickly becomes clear that Ólafsson is once again immersing himself in a new musical era and wants to draw as much as possible from it before presenting it to the listeners. And this is done amazingly well! The pianist manages to reflect the German-Italian influence of the early and high classical period, in the midst of the 18th century, in a uniquely versatile way. In addition to extreme precision, there is also an impressive lightness to his playing at the same time. Another special feature of this album are Ólafsson's self-penned arrangements of Mozart's Adagio in E-flat major, the third movement from the original String Quartet No. 3 in G minor, K. 516, as well as to Cimarosa's Sonatas No. 42 and No. 55. Here one can discover the performing musician in the role of co-creator at the same time - Ólafsson deals with the music with hair-pin precision and provides it with his personal sensual Icelandic, and, indeed, contemporary touch. © Lena Germann/Qobuz

1773 was a key year for orchestral music. Mozart composed his “little G minor Symphony”, no. 25, and began work on the music for the play Thamos, König in Ägypten. In Paris, Grétry perfected the opéra-comique, a genre combining the light and the serious, and completely renewed the musical drama. Is it a mere coincidence that their compositions of that year show the same intensity and dramatic efficacy? Martin Wåhlberg, at the head of his Orkester Nord, thinks not. Here he paints a bold picture: that of a Mozart taking inspiration from the new French theatre music, while retaining his own exceptional inventiveness and sense of form. The works recorded here enable us to trace the evolution of the emerging symphony, from the French theatre, with instrumental music from Grétry’s Céphale et Procris, to the German theatre, with Mozart’s music for the play Thamos, then the Mozart symphony, with his K.183, combining all of those elements in a purely orchestral work. © Aparté

Download not available