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
Similar artists
-
Pleyel: Symphonies
Matthias Bamert, London Mozart Players
Symphonies - Released by Chandos on 1 Mar 1997
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Rosetti: Symphonies
Matthias Bamert, London Mozart Players
Symphonies - Released by Chandos on 1 Oct 1997
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Vivaldi: The Four Seasons
Classical - Released by Nimbus Alliance on 1 Mar 2012
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Petits Fours
Chamber Music - Released by Cello Classics on 1 Jan 2002
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Concerto & quintette pour clarinette - Quatuor pour hautbois
London Mozart Players, Chilingirian Quartet
Classical - Released by Warner Classics on 1 Jan 1982
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Baguer: Symphonies
Matthias Bamert, London Mozart Players
Symphonies - Released by Chandos on 1 Aug 1996
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Mozart: The Great Symphonies
London Mozart Players, Jane Glover
Classical - Released by Decca (UMO) on 1 Jan 2003
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Mozart: Clarinet Concerto, Clarinet Quintet & Oboe Quartet
Andrew Marriner, Gordon Hunt, London Mozart Players, Jane Glover, Chilingirian Quartet
Classical - Released by Warner Classics on 1 Jan 1982
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Contemporaries of Mozart Collection
London Mozart Players, Matthias Bamert
Symphonies - Released by Chandos on 1 Aug 2010
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Cramer: Piano Concertos Nos. 4 & 5 (Hyperion Classical Piano Concerto 6)
Howard Shelley, London Mozart Players
Classical - Released by Hyperion on 28 Jun 2019
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Clementi: Symphonies
London Mozart Players, Matthias Bamert
Symphonies - Released by Chandos on 1 Sep 1993
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Jonathan Dove: For an Unknown Soldier
London Mozart Players, Melvyn Tan, Nicky Spence
Classical - Released by Signum Records on 4 Nov 2016
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Concertos pour piano n° 4 et n° 6
Míceál O'Rourke, London Mozart Players, Matthias Bamert
Keyboard Concertos - Released by Chandos on 1 Apr 1996
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Paganini, Sarasate, Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Guitar Concertos
Nicola Hall, London Mozart Players, Andrew Litton
Classical - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on 1 Feb 1994
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Carson Cooman: As We Are Changed, Op. 1340
The Choir of Royal Holloway, Sarah Fox, Robert Murray, Sebastian Comberti, London Mozart Players, Rupert Gough
Classical - Released by Convivium Records on 2 Jul 2021
24-Bit 192.0 kHz - Stereo -
Krommer: Symphonies
London Mozart Players, Matthias Bamert
Symphonies - Released by Chandos on 1 Apr 1994
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Concerto for Flute and Harp in C Major, K. 299: II. Andantino
Helena Macherel, Tjasha Gafner, London Mozart Players
Concertos - Released by Claves Records on 2 Feb 2024
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
A Song More Silent - New Works for Remembrance
Classical - Released by Avie Records on 4 Nov 2008
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
PIANO CONCERTOS VOL. 5
Howard Shelley, London Mozart Players
Keyboard Concertos - Released by Chandos on 1 Nov 1994
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Concertos pour piano (Volume 2)
Howard Shelley, London Mozart Players
Keyboard Concertos - Released by Chandos on 1 Jun 1992
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Field: Concertos, Vol. 2
Matthias Bamert, London Mozart Players, Míceál O'Rourke
Concertos - Released by Chandos on 1 Apr 1996
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo