London Mozart Players
Among London's many small orchestral ensembles, the London Mozart Players are perhaps the oldest and certainly among the most prestigious. The group specializes not only in the music of Mozart but also in other works of the Classical period, featuring small forces similar to those that would have played the music in its own time, although modern rather than historical instruments are used.
The London Mozart Players were formed in 1949 by conductor and string player Harry Blech, who gathered musicians from the National Gallery Concerts he had mounted in the empty museum during World War II. Blech remained the conductor until 1984. At the time, it was Britain's only orchestra specializing in Classical-period music. The orchestra was popular from the beginning, partly because Blech insisted on touring smaller venues in rural Britain where top-notch orchestral playing was hard to find in the difficult postwar years. In London itself, the group appeared annually for many years at the Royal Festival Hall. An early digital recording appeared on the Chandos label in 1983 and featured symphonies by Muzio Clementi.
The London Mozart Players have served since the late '80s as the official resident ensemble of the Borough of Croydon, and in 2016, it took up residence at the borough's Fairfield Halls. Blech was succeeded in 1984 by Jane Glover, Matthias Bamert in 1992, Andrew Parrott in 2000, Gérard Korsten in 2010, and Howard Shelley in 2014. The orchestra enjoys noble patronage from the Earl of Wessex but, uniquely among British professional orchestras, delegates both financial and artistic leadership to the players themselves. Britain-wide tours have been followed by worldwide ones, including a tour in 2018 that included stops in Dubai and Hong Kong. The orchestra has long attracted prestigious soloists, from flutist James Galway in his heyday to Nicola Benedetti, Sheku Kanneh-Mason, and Thomas Trotter in the 2010s.
The London Mozart Players have recorded prolifically, mostly for Chandos, often committing to disc the music of rarely heard composers such as Leopold Kozeluch and Adalbert Gyrowetz. The group sometimes ventures beyond the Classical and early Romantic periods, joining the Colla Voce Singers for a recording of Roxanna Panufnik's Love Abide on the Signum Classics label in 2019. In 2021, the London Mozart Players joined the Choir of Royal Holloway, University of London, for a recording on Hyperion of the oratorio As We Are Changed by Carson Cooman and Euan Tait. By 2023, when the orchestra returned to Chandos for the world premiere recording of Hubert Parry's Scenes from Shelley's Prometheus Unbound, its recording catalog comprised well over 50 items.
© James Manheim /TiVo
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Vivaldi: Four Bassoon Concertos, La Tempesta di Mare & Il Piacere
Philip Ledger, Ronald Thomas, London Mozart Players, Bournemouth Sinfonietta, Robert Thompson
Concertos - Released by Chandos on Feb. 1, 1991
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Concertos pour piano n° 5 "L'incendie par l'orage" & n° 3
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16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Handel: The Water Music
London Mozart Players, Jane Glover
Classical - Released by Decca (UMO) on Jan. 1, 1997
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Mozart: Symphony No. 34 in C Major, K. 338 and K. 409
Classical - Released by Past Classics on Jan. 1, 1957
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Mozart : Concertos pour piano
Howard Shelley, London Mozart Players
Keyboard Concertos - Released by Chandos on Feb. 1, 1993
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Mozart: Symphony No. 36 in C Major, K. 425 - "Linz"
Classical - Released by Past Classics on Nov. 1, 2009
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Concertos pour piano (Volume 4)
Howard Shelley, London Mozart Players
Keyboard Concertos - Released by Chandos on Feb. 1, 1994
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Offenbach: Christopher Columbus
Maurice Arthur, Joy Roberts, Alun Francis, London Mozart Players
Opera - Released by Opera Rara on Jan. 1, 1992
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Clive Osgood: Magnificat
Excelsis, London Mozart Players, Amy Carson, Robert Lewis
Classical - Released by Convivium Records Ltd. on Apr. 5, 2024
24-Bit 192.0 kHz - Stereo -
Benda: Piano Concertos (Hyperion Classical Piano Concerto 8)
Howard Shelley, London Mozart Players
Classical - Released by Hyperion on Oct. 1, 2021
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Jones: Chamber Works
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24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Kozeluch: Piano Concertos Nos. 1, 5 & 6 (Hyperion Classical Piano Concerto 4)
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Classical - Released by Hyperion on Dec. 30, 2016
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
İdil Biret Concerto Edition, Vol. 6
Idil Biret, London Mozart Players, Patrick Gallois
Classical - Released by Idil Biret Archive on Sep. 4, 2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Mozart: Messe, K. 317 "Du couronnement" - Haydn: Salve Regina, Hob. XXIIIb:2 (Mono Version)
April Cantelo, London Mozart Players, Harry Blech
Miscellaneous - Released by BNF Collection on Jan. 1, 1958
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Haydn: Symphonies Nos. 103 "Roulement de timbales" & 104 "Londres" (Mono Version)
London Mozart Players, Harry Blech
Miscellaneous - Released by BNF Collection on Jan. 1, 1958
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Schubert: Symphonies Nos. 4 "Tragique" & 6 (Mono Version)
Harry Blech, London Mozart Players
Miscellaneous - Released by BNF Collection on Nov. 1, 1956
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Cramer: Piano Concertos Nos. 4 & 5 (Hyperion Classical Piano Concerto 6)
Howard Shelley, London Mozart Players
Classical - Released by Hyperion on Jun. 28, 2019
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Cramer: Piano Concertos Nos. 1, 3 & 6 (Hyperion Classical Piano Concerto 7)
Howard Shelley, London Mozart Players
Classical - Released by Hyperion on Sep. 25, 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Schubert, F.: Symphonies Nos. 4, "Tragic" and 5 (Blech) (1952)
London Mozart Players, Harry Blech
Classical - Released by Naxos Classical Archives on Jan. 1, 1954
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo