Recorded at:		-
	Live / Studio		Studio
	Producer		-
	Balance engineer		-
	First LP Edition		BASF | 29 21107-2 | 2 LPs | durata 47' 23" - 36' 18" | (p) 1972
	First CD Edition		PILZ - ACANTA | 44 2151-2 | 2 CDs | durata 47' 23" - 36' 18" | (c) 1993 | ADD
	Note		-

Musik aus Schlössernb & Residenzen (20 CD Collection) Membran | 234355 | (c) 2016 (in CD 13 & 14)

A comprehensive description of the musical life in Munich in the 1770’s has been left to us by an unknown contemporary observer who wrote: „(…could be found): A well organised orchestra under its maestro Bernasconi, who, as his numerous compositions showed, devoted much of his time and energy to it; an Italian opera which ran during Carnival time, usually with a work composed by some accomplished foreign master and performed by famous singers, including in their time such brilliant castratos as Farinelli and Guadagni, to which were admitted, free of charge, the numerous music-lovers and members of the educated classes who eagerly poured in from the neighbouring seminaries, monasteries and country towns to glean new ideas for their own musical efforts of the coming year; frequent court concerts of amateur music-making; and, almost without exception, a daily chamber music concert, an entertainment which the Elector, himself a skillful performer on the viola da pompa and an esteemed amateur composer, much liked to attend of an evening. In addition, there were musical performances of various kinds in all the larger churches of the city – the Jesuits enjoying the full splendour of the majestic sounds of trumpets and drums, the Augustinians favouring a more modest, gentle mode of expression: during Lent meditations and oratorios, including Metastasio’s passions, from the pens of the solemn Jommelli and the well-pleasing Mysliweczek.“ Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart appears to have been greatly charmed by the city of Munich („I love being here“ he is known to have exclaimed). Just how attractive his stay there in 1784 must have been, we can read from his own travel notes: „This city is one of the most beautiful in all Germany, as everyone here will agree. One can live here very cheaply, very comfortably and very freely. Paradisial gardens, palaces worthy of the gods, incomparable concert performances and theatrical productions as magical as fairyland.“ After the oppressive narrow atmosphere of the life in Salzburg, Munich’s more generous living and abundance of stimulating new ideas and opportunities must have shown up in especially glowing colours to Mozart. It was in the sixties that Mozart had actually first visited Munich. The child prodigy and his sister, Nannerl, had been taken on tour by their father, Leopold Mozart, and invited to play for the Elector at his Residenz and at the Nymphenburg Palace, and for Duke Clemens at his Garden Schloss just outside the city. Later, in 1774, he was commissioned to write an opera for Munich - „La Finta giardiniera“. Even after the first rehearsal Father Leopold was able to write home proudly to Salzburg, „The whole orchestra and everyone that attended the rehearsal say that they have never heard any music more beautiful, an opera where each aria is as lovely as next. Whereever we go people are talking about it.“ The premiere was on January 13th, 1775, at the Salvator Theatre. Mozart wrote to his mother, „God be praised! Yesterday, on the thirteenth, my opera was launched, and was such a success with the audience, Mama, that I just could not begin to describe you the noise! In the first place the theatre was packed so full that lots of people had to be turned away. And after each aria there was such a terrible din with all the clapping and yells of „viva maestro“.“ Right up to the end of Carnival time the Mozarts were busy attending all the masquerades, making the most of their opportunity. On February 15th Leopold Mozart wrote; „We have decided not to go to a masquerade today, we must rest. It will be the first one we have missed. „ During the remaining time Mozart occupied himself with composing. Probably stemming from this period are a mass, a Kyrie fragment, an offertory, a piano sonata, a sonata for bassoon and violoncello and the two Wind Divertimenti KV 196 e and f. These two last-named pieces are gay, light-hearted works, each consisting of five movements, typical of the sort of music that would be played by the court or town musicians during dinners or at small social gatherings to entertain the guests. Mozart himself was treated to a similar musical diversion about two years later when he was lodging with the music-loving innkeeper Herr Albert, who kept a winecellar in the Kaufingergasse in Munich. Mozart reported: „At about half past nine a little band of five musicians arrived, 2 clarinets, 2 horns and 1 bassoon. Herr Albert, whose name-day it is tomorrow, had let them play in his honour and in mine, and they did not play too badly either. They were the same people that play for the dancing at Albert’s.“ A quarter of a century later, around 1800, Munich was a city with a population of 45 000. In the Residenz Theatre, built by Francois Cuvilliés, about 40 performances of operas were being given a year. In addition to the works of Italian, French and Viennese masters a fair number of operas by local composers were now being included in the repertoire. A contemporary printed guide to the city lists the following musical entertainments: „At court, from time to time, amateur concerts are organised in the Hercules Room at the Residenz, particularly on gala-days; more frequently, chamber music concerts with vocal and instrumental music are given. The former entertainment may be attended not only by the courtiers themselves but also by the entire court household and, behind a small barrier, more humble members of the public. The latter concerts, of chamber music, are given only by a small selected group of performers. In the ballroom, every year, there are also 12 amateur concerts given with admission through an advance payment of 11 guilders. The profit thus made, after all costs have been deducted, is allotted to the theatre funds.“ In 1778 the court orchestra gained considerable reinforcement through the arrival of the Mannheim Orchestra with Elector Karl Theodor. It now could boast a number of accomplished musicians and composers, whose compositions now made up the main part of its concert programmes. Above all, the works of the Kapellmeister Winter and Danzi enjoyed great popularity. Franz Danzi, who had known Mozart personally, started off as a violoncellist in the court orchestra, and after being granted many leaves of absence over the years for opera and concert performances in Saxony, Bohemia and Italy, where he toured with his wife Margarethe (a pupil of Leopold Mozart), he finally, in 1798, was appointed its Vice Kapellmeister. He later became a close friend of Carl Maria von Weber and is, with justification, considered an important forerunner of the German musical Romantic Movement. Danzi’s influence on Weber, who was 23 years his junior, may be easily traced, for example, in the Concerto in F major for Bassoon and Orchestra with its concluding Polacca, which clearly points towards the style of similar final movements in Weber’s solo concertos. In this work, as in the Double Concerto in D major for Clarinet and Bassoon, the melodic wealth and harmonic colourfulness characteristic of Danzi’s music are set off to particularly charming advantage. Internal disputes with his colleague Peter von Winter caused Danzi to leave Munich in 1807 and take up another position, as court Kapellmeister in Stuttgart. His compositions, however, long remained favourites on the numerous concert programmes and in the repertoires of the Munich church choirs. Dr. Robert Münster