1 CD - SK 46 695 - (p) 1991

VIVARTE - 60 CD Collection Vol. 2 - CD 28





Overtures
59' 36"



Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART (1756-1791)


- Idomeneo, K 366 4' 28"
1
- Die Entfuhrungs aus dem Serail, K 384 - Concert conclusion arranged by Bastiaan Blomhert 4' 32"
2
- Der Schauspieldirektor, K 486 4' 16"
3
- Le nozze di Figaro, K 492 4' 44"
4
- Don Giovanni, K 527 6' 03"
5
- Così fan tutte, K 588 4' 26"
6
- La clemenza di Tito, K 621 4' 40"
7
- Die Zauberflöte, K 620 6' 27"
8
Serenade in G major, K 525 "Eine kleine Nachtmusik"
19' 12"

- Allegro 7' 29"
9
- Romance. Andante 4' 34"
10
- Menuetto. Allegretto · Trio 2' 00"
11
- Rondo. Allegro 5' 09"
12



 
Tafelmusik on period instruments
Jeanne Lamon, music director
Bruno Weil, conductor
 





Luogo e data di registrazione
Forum am Schloßpark, Ludwigsburg (Germany) - 17/20 May 1991

Registrazione: live / studio
studio

Producer / Recording supervisor
Wolf Erichson

Recording Engineers / Editing
Stephan Schellmann; Markus Heiland (Tritonus)

Prima Edizione LP
-

Prima Edizione CD
Sony / Vivarte - SK 46 295 - (CD) - durata 59' 36" - (p) 1991 - DDD

Cover Art
Parnaso confuso by Johann Franz Greipel (1720-1798) - Kunsthistorisches Museum, Wien

Note
-












Above all, in an opera the poetry must he a submissive daughter to the music. Why are the foreign nations always so pleased by their comic operas - with all the rniserable things in the texts - even in Paris - where I personally was a witness to this? - because in those operas the music reigns, and it makes one forget everything else.
Mozart to his father, Vienna, 13 October 1781
With this simple insight the twenty-five year old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart identified the essence of hisown future success as an opera composer - both for then and for posterity as well. One may recognize the abilities ofa librettist, or even the perfect marriage of sound and action, but the key to a great opera turns primarily upon the quality of its music. Mozart proved this point most decidedly with the overtures on this recording, all written in the last decade of his life.
Idomeneo, King of Crete (Idomeneo, Re di Creta), K. 366, was commissioned for the Court Theater in Munich. Mozart brought the libretto, by Giambattista Varesco, from Salzburg, and produced the work on January 29, 1781. The Archbishop Colloredo then summoned him to Vienna, and thus began the great "Vienna period" that lasted until Mozart`s death.
Idomeneo is often said to have been a turning point in the history of opera seria. It makes new use of the accompanied recitative, and reveals the composer as a master of dramatic form and motion. The overture reflects this new spirit in its linear beauty superimposed on a driving pattern of repeated notes, punctuated throughout by trumpets and tympani.
The first performance of The Abduction from the Seraglio (Die Entführung aus dem Serail), K. 384, took place at the Burgtheater in Vienna on July 16, 1782.It is based on a libretto by Gottlieb Stephanie (after Bretzner). Commissioned on the occasion of a visit by the Russian Grand Duke Paul, the opera's Turkish setting has often been the subject of socio-political analysis in light of Austria's alliance with Russia against the Turks. Mozart saw it primarily as an opportunity to elevate the Singspiel to a new artistic level. Drawing on a number of international influences, he introduced a lyricism and a complexity of characterizations then unknown in the German musical theater. In the overture Mozart foregoes a normal development in order to introduce a little scene based on Belmonte's first aria in Act 1, thus connecting the overture more firmly to its theatrical context than in previous stage works. The concert conclusion in this recording has been arranged by Bastiaan Blomhert on the basis of Mozart's score for Harmoniemusik (music for wind instruments) from Die Entführung aus dem Serail, found in the court library of Donaueschingen (signature Mus. Ms. 1392 et sequ.).
The Impresario (Der Schauspieldirektor), K. 486, is a comedy on a libretto by Gottlieb Stephanie. It was a private “pleasure piece” for the Emperor Joseph II, played for the entertainment of his friends in the Schönbrunn palace on February 7, 1786. This little buffo story about theatrical egos had been used many times before, as in well-known versions by Metastasio, Goldoni, and Bertati. But the Mozart-Stephanie setting is possibly the wittiest of them, and in addition (a less respectable fact!), it employs the most uncouth language of all.
The overture is one of this opera's brightest features. It breezes along with the same energy that Mozart gives to overtures of more ambitious works, such as Così, Titus, and The Abduction. And like these three, it is cast in C major, a key that represents Mozart in one of his most dynamic moods.
The Marriage of Figaro (Le Nozze di Figaro),K. 492, is clearly the first of Mozart's greatest operatic masterworks. It is also the first of Mozart's collaborations with Lorenzo da Ponte, who fashioned the text of the opera after Beaumarchais` famous play, Le Mariage de Figaro (1784). The première took place in May of 1786, although Mozart probably finished the work months earlier.
The overture was originally planned as an ABA form, and, like the Overture to The Abduction, the middle section was to have been a contrasting andante - possibly a theme from the opera itself. In the autograph one can see the beginning of such a section, a siciliano that Mozart scratched out. He did not replace this siciliano with even a development, so we now know the overture in an unusual AA form, incorporating only the most fundamental parts of sonata structure.
Don Giovanni (Il dissoluto punito, ossia Il Don Giovanni), K. 527, is Mozart's second collaboration with Lorenzo da Ponte, finished in Prague in October, 1787. Of all Mozart's works, it was Don Giovanni that most profoundly affected 19th century listeners, who identified this work with the Romantic principles to which they themselves subscribed.
The gravely syncopated D minor opening of the overture is based on music from the second act finale, where Don Giovanni is confronted and destroyed by his “stone guestt” the dead Commendatore. The rest of the overture bustles along in a D major allegro in the spirit of Don Giovanni before his fall.
The bright comedy, Così fan tutte (Così fan tutte, ossia La scuola degli amanti), K. 588, was the third and last opera Mozart wrote with da Ponte. It was performed at the Burgtheater in Vienna on January 26, 1790. For a two-act opera it is one of Mozart's longest, and dramatically most difficult to sustain. After five performances, the opera's run was interrupted by the death of the Austrian monarch, Joseph II. But it gathered popularity, and is now one of the most often performed of Mozart's stage works. The overture opens with a few bars of andante, then speeds along to a scintillating finish. Near the end we hear a bit of the andante motive woven into the presto, creating a small cyclic hint about tempo relationships.
The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte), K. 620, is unquestionably the greatest 18th -century German opera. Set to a libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder, it was produced at Vienna`s Theater auf der Wieden on September 30, 1791. Unlike Mozart's others, this overture opens in a true adagio tempo, which features the solemn music of the priests from the beginning of Act II. This is followed by a sonata-allegro, brilliantly disguised as a fugue. Mozart interrupts this allegro just before the “development” to restate the priestly chords, then continues his contrapuntal tour de force to the end. Sketches indicate that the overture was originally to have been simpler - opening with an expressive andante followed by an allegro moderato - both parts in syncopated rhythms.
The Clemency of Títus (La clemenza di Tito), K. 621, is Mozart's last opera, finished exactly three months before his death in December 1791. It is based on a Libretto by Caterino Mazzola (after Metastasio). Considering that its overture introduces an opera seria, it displays little of the foreboding that one hears, say, in the Overture to Don Giovanni. Mozart could easily have used it to introduce a lighter opera. But one serious feature - the syncopated motive that drives it relentlessly forward - relates it to other works with “tragic” affects, such as the D minor Piano Concerto, the "Prague" Symphony, and the beginning of the 0verture to Don Giovanni.
The Serenade No. 13, Eine kleine Nachtmusik, K. 525 is perhaps Mozart's most well-known instrumental work. Mozart finished it in Vienna, on the 19th of August, 1787. Considering the work's current popularity, it is surprising how little we actually know about it. Mozart wrote it while at work on the second act of Don Giovanni, which suggests that it was composed on specific commission. But we do not know for whom he wrote it, for what occasion, or if it were played during his lifetime. Mozart records that the serenade originally had five movements (another minuet), but it is now almost always played in four movements. The great Mozart biographer, Alfred Einstein, believed that the minuet of the Piano Sonata, K. Anh. 136, completed by August Eberhard Müller, may once have been a part of the serenade.
David Montgomery