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VA - Mozart 225: Complete Duos (2017)

VA - Mozart 225: Complete Duos (2017)

BAND/ARTIST: VA

  • Title: Mozart 225: Complete Duos
  • Year Of Release: 2017
  • Label: Deutsche Grammophon
  • Genre: Classical
  • Quality: FLAC (tracks)
  • Total Time: 11:12:00
  • Total Size: 3.54 Gb
  • WebSite:
Tracklist:

 


If weight is any indication of the value of a collection then this may be the finest such box set ever released. It is heavy, perhaps approaching forty pounds in weight. Released in commemoration of the 225th anniversary of Mozart's death, there are treasures contained within so its weight and its surprising density strike me as utterly appropriate. Included are two beautifully illustrated books written by Mozart scholar Professor Clifford Eisen: the first book devoted to Mozart's life and career, the second an analysis of his music. Eisen has an encyclopedic knowledge of Mozart's life and work and his analysis of both is especially significant in light of recent discoveries made by scholars like Wolfgang Plath analyzing the minutiae of Mozart's handwriting and Alan Tyson's brilliant analysis of Mozart's manuscript paper, which was handmade and bore a distinctive watermark. Scholars have gleaned a wealth of new information about Mozart's day-to-day creative activity and Eisen's synthesis of these new insights is especially important and timely. Another significant event was the 2004 discovery that the "Jeunehomme" Piano Concerto No.9 in E-flat major K.271 was mis-named and that the eponymous pianist was actually Victoire Jenamy, which solved a two century old mystery. This new monograph by Eisen is especially useful for its inclusion of the latest discoveries.

Also included in this collection is the publication for the first time of a new Kochel guide, offering in short form the new Kochel catalogue developed over several decades by the International Stiftung Mozarteum. The updated Kochel guide is an attempt to standardize the numbering of Mozart's 700 completed works and fragments along with those spurious and doubtful compositions that have accreted to the Mozart name over the past 225 years. Lovers of Mozart's music have an especially close relationship with the Kochel catalogue and its all-important "K" numbers. Four frame-able prints are included in every set, including a copy of a Mozart letter and a small reproduction of a score. These are an especially nice touch that help to place Mozart's unique and slightly remote genius into a personal context, helping to humanize it so far as that is possible.

This Edition presents more than 240 hours of music arranged chronologically, claiming some 600 solo performers and ensembles including as many as 60 orchestras and nearly every important Mozart interpreter of the past 30 years. The recordings of Mozart's earliest works are usually by so-called historically informed performers. For example, the symphonies are overwhelmingly represented by performances from Trevor Pinnock and The English Concert and (less frequently) Christopher Hogwood but also include performances by Frans Bruggen and Marc Minkowski. Concertos can feature violinist Viktoria Mullova conducting the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Malcolm Bilson on fortepiano accompanied by John Eliot Gardiner and his English Baroque Soloists. But there are also alternative performances from more mainstream musicians like Anne-Sophie Mutter, Hilary Hahn, Daniel Barenboim and Iona Brown with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields. The list of performers is quite extensive and even includes old hands like Austrian violinist Willi Boskovsky conducting most of the Mozart dances.

There are a large number of representative performers with instrumental music weighted towards original instruments and vocal performances like opera necessarily more varied in the range of recording styles. There is an opera recording conducted by John Eliot Gardiner (his widely praised recording of Idomeneo) alongside one conducted by Georg Solti (his recording of Cosi Fan Tutte). There is a fairly well-chosen variability in vocal performers and performances including several recent opera recordings. The set even features Erich Kleiber's landmark 1955 Decca recording with the Vienna Philharmonic of Le Nozze di Figaro. The same holds true for chamber music recordings and solo performances. There are also a large number of recordings of historical interest that are included, as if to balance the scales a little. The number of fragments, new discoveries and musical curiosities is large enough to occupy a listener for days. There are songs of questionable taste that are a hoot to listen to (Mozart had a very playful mind), works finished by other composers and scholars, works arranged from other composers by Mozart, as well as arrangements of his own works and seven CDs of doubtful works that are almost good enough to make the cut but are still a great deal of fun to listen to. All-in-all this limited edition box set represents a lifetime of listening and helps to place Mozart's inexplicable genius into some sort of context.

Many of the recordings sound as if they've been re-mastered. Sound quality is excellent but variable with the earliest historical performances a bit more compressed while newer recordings are vivid and airy with a reverberant brightness and clarity. Most of the discs are generously filled with many of them featuring timings of 85 minutes or more, the longest CDs I've ever seen. This once-in-a-lifetime collection designed for the Mozart fanatic is pricey and would have benefited from the inclusion of DVD performances. Nevertheless, despite a few quibbles about selections, there are a substantial number of superb performances. The issue of duplicates is inevitable for any Mozart collector, with approximately 30% of the recordings included here also included on the previous Mozart Complete Edition released by Philips for the 1991 commemoration. Some other duplication of instrumental and vocal recordings seems inevitable as well but the collection appears varied enough to offer a substantial number of performances that are new. There is a complete list of recordings at the DGG website. The list is too long to include here. If you love Mozart's music enough to have memorized the Kochel listing of his works, you are officially a fanatic for whom this incredible collection was designed. You may enter the world of perfect beauty created by this once-in-a-millennium musical genius and never want to leave. It is an overwhelming collection.





Year 2017 | Classical | FLAC / APE

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