Mozart's Symphonies
Mozart's Symphonies Nos 38-41
Gramophone Choice
Vol 1: Symphonies – Nos 29, 31, 32, 35 & 36; Vol 2: Symphonies Nos 38-41
Scottish Chamber Orchestra / Sir Charles Mackerras
There is no need to argue the credentials of Sir Charles Mackerras as a Mozart interpreter, so let us just say that these two double CDs contain no surprises – they’re every bit as good as you would expect. Like many modern-instrument performances these days it shows the period-orchestra influence in its lean sound, agile dynamic contrasts, sparing string vibrato, rasping brass, sharp-edged timpani and prominent woodwind, though given Mackerras’s long revisionist track-record it seems an insult to suggest that he would not have arrived at such a sound of his own accord. And in any case his handling of it – joyously supported by the playing of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra – is supremely skilled; rarely will you hear such well judged orchestral balance, such effective marrying of textural transparency and substance.
Seldom, either, will you hear such expertly chosen tempi; generally these performances are on the quick side, but rather than seeming hard-driven they exude forward momentum effortlessly worn. Nowhere is this better shown than in the slow movements (even with all their repeats they never flag, yet their shifting expressive moods are still tenderly drawn), but also conspicuously successful are the slow introductions to Symphonies Nos 38 and 39 and the Minuet movements of Nos 40 and 39.
There’s a clarity to the acoustic as recorded in Glasgow’s City Halls, which Mackerras uses to his advantage, instinctively bringing out telling inner lines. These are not Mozart performances for the romantics out there, but neither are they in the least lacking in humanity. No, this is thoroughly modern-day Mozart, full of wisdom and leaving the listener in no doubt of the music’s ineffable greatness.
Additional Recommendations
Complete Symphonies
The English Concert / Trevor Pinnock
Archiv 471 6662AB11 (13h 36' · DDD) Buy from Amazon
This set is pure joy. These are period performances but there’s nothing hair-shirt about them. Pinnock caresses the slow movements with great affection, and throughout there’s a sense of fun and enjoyment. What’s exciting is the sweetness of the period-instrument sound and the suppleness and flexibility the English Concert bring to the music. They play, much of the time, as if it were chamber music, particularly in second subjects – the lyrical passages, that is, where they shape the phrases with a warmth and refinement you hardly expect in orchestral music. Timing is quietly witty, yet not at all contrived or artificial: it’s the sort of expressive refinement that depends on listening to one another, not on the presence of a conductor. There’s large-scale playing, too.
The middle symphonies are especially good. The opening of the brilliant K133 (No 20) has a splendid swing, with its prominent trumpets, and a real sense of a big, symphonic piece. K184 (No 26) is duly fiery and its accents are neatly judged. K201 and K202 (Nos 29 and 30) are both very impressively done: an eloquent rather than a fiery account (though something of that too) of the opening movement of K201, with a particularly euphonious and shapely Andante. The finales of both are done with exceptional vitality and the rhythmic resilience that’s characteristic of these performances.
Pinnock’s Jupiter (No 41) is truly outstanding. The first movement is duly weighty but energetically paced, its critical junctures timed with a keen sense of their role in the shape of the whole. In the Andante he draws an extraordinarily beautiful, almost sensuous sound from the English Concert, and the lines are moulded with tenderness. This, above all, is the quality that distinguishes Pinnock’s recordings from all others, this natural and musical sound, deriving from the way the players are intently listening to one another; and it’s fitting that it reaches its high-point in the Jupiter. As for the finale: well, it’s decidedly quick, giving the impression of a performance in which the orchestra is pressed to an extent that its ensemble-playing is under stress, though it holds together. It’s a very bold, outspoken reading, which leaves one gasping afresh at the music’s originality.
In short, quite outstanding performances, unfailingly musical, wholly natural and unaffected, often warmly expressive in the slow music and always falling very happily on the ear, with no trace of the harshness that some think is inevitable with period instruments. They are excellently recorded, with the properly prominent wind balance helping to characterise the sound world of each work.
Symphonies – No 14, 18, 20, 39 & 41
Boston Symphony Orchestra / James Levine
BSO Classics 1001/2 (134’ · DDD · Recorded live 2009) Buy from Amazon
Sometimes just what you need is some big-band Mozart symphonies, plush and well-upholstered, in which to enfold yourself. It’s unfashionable since the scorched-earth authenticists got their hands on this music but James Levine fields what sounds like a full team without lopping off the back desks of strings, as modern-instrument bands always feel they have to when venturing back to the time before Beethoven. Is the pay-off a loss of litheness in the finales? Does balance suffer, with the all-important wind parts swamped by the string complement? Is the end result bloated, larded with love, smothered with affection?
No, no and no. These Bostonians are full of beans in the last-movement high jinks of No 39 and the contrapuntal ingenuity of No 41, while whimsical moments such as the ‘any umbrellas’ Trio in No 39 come across as vividly as ever, played with a chamber-music lightness of touch. Nevertheless, there’s no dulling of the steel in the psycho-stabs at 1'34" in the same symphony’s introduction. As for the three early symphonies (1771-72) on disc 1, Levine offers an ideal response to their galant sound worlds. Whether you hanker after Mozart-playing as if from a less ‘sophisticated’ age or simply crave the guilty pleasure of full-fat, high-calorie performances of 18th-century music, Levine and the Bostonians demonstrate that a lot of what you fancy does you good.
Symphony No 33. Serenade No 9, ‘Posthorn’
Academy of St Martin in the Fields / Iona Brown
Hänssler Classic CD98 129 (59' · DDD) Buy from Amazon
This is Mozart sound, using modern instruments but with some concern for the crisper manners encouraged by period performance, that in its freshness and beauty makes one want to go on listening. The finale of Symphony No 33, for example, brings a hectic speed which doesn’t sound at all breathless, with feather-light triplets, and similarly in the finale of the Posthorn Serenade with which it’s coupled. Exceptionally, in that Serenade, Iona Brown opts for a more relaxed speed and more moulded style in the lovely minor-key Andantino of the fifth movement. The posthorn in the Trio of the second Minuet is this time much more brazen and more forwardly balanced than before.
Symphony No 38. Piano Concerto No 25, K503. Ch’io mi scordi di te…Non temer, amato bene, K505
Bernarda Fink (sop) Lausanne Chamber Orchestra / Christian Zacharias (pf)
Dabringhaus und Grimm MDG340 0967-2 (73' · DDD) Buy from Amazon
Here Christian Zacharias successfully experiments with a nicely balanced Mozart group of symphony, aria and concerto. He himself takes multiple roles, conducting a fresh and lively account of the Prague Symphony, and acting as piano soloist not only in the concerto, directing the weighty K503 from the keyboard, but also providing a crisply pointed obbligato in the most taxing of Mozart’s concert arias, Ch’io mi scordi di te. The sense of freedom and spontaneous enjoyment is enhanced by the clarity of the recording, made in the Metropole, Lausanne. Though tuttis are big and weighty, Zacharias finds rare transparency in lighter passages, and a vivid sense of presence throughout. One of Zacharias’s great merits as a Mozart pianist is the crispness of his articulation; he defines each note with jewelled clarity.
The symphony, too, is given a refreshing performance, with due weight in the first movement and light, crisp articulation in the finale. Some may feel that Zacharias underplays the gravity of the central Andante, but nowadays few will object to a flowing tempo such as one expects in a period performance.
Most striking of all, though, is the concert aria. Bernarda Fink, officially a mezzo, isn’t just untroubled by the soprano tessitura but gives a characterful interpretation, pointing words and phrases with delightful individuality. Using her lovely creamy tone-colours, Fink offers one of the most impressive of all readings since Schwarzkopf’s. Her contribution crowns a consistently enjoyable programme.
Symphonies – Nos 38 & 41
Freiburg Baroque Orchestra / René Jacobs
Harmonia Mundi HMC90 1958 (69' · DDD) Buy from Amazon
Such has been the admiration (if not always affection) for René Jacobs’s Mozart operas, and so striking have been the contributions of the period orchestras involved, that it seems only natural that he should try his hand at a couple of the great man’s symphonies. The results fascinate in places and infuriate in others, but never lack for talking-points.
The Jupiter is the more successful, showing the kind of ‘inside-out’ rethink with which Roger Norrington used to enrage and delight. The first movement is playful, with Jacobs toning down the Olympian grandeur and mischievously emphasising the buffo elements – the chuckling third theme is given the special treatment of a slower tempo and subsequent accelerando, with one statement even adorned with an exuberant upward violin slide. The slow movement, luminous and taken at a perfectly judged brisk walking pace, will be less contentious, but not so the Minuet, which races by at an initially disturbing yet ultimately exhilaratingly satisfying one-in-a-bar. After all this creative energy, the surprisingly steady finale seems to lack ideas by comparison, though its contrapuntal panache gains much from the clarity Jacobs draws from the excellent Freiburg band.
Crisp and boisterous orchestral playing likewise characterises the Prague, though here Jacobs seems to find it more difficult to find a way into the heart of the music. The first movement has a stricter pulse than in the Jupiter, and, while the development emerges as a thrilling battleground, the second subject’s beautifully consoling woodwind lines are shown none of the loving tenderness they deserve. The Andante seems uncertain of its tempo (Jacobs is not the first conductor to struggle here), and the finale does not quite convince at its supersonic speed. Nevertheless, this is an intriguing and invigorating disc; Jacobs’s Jupiter, at least, qualifies as among the most thought-provoking of recent years.
Symphonies – Nos 39, K543; No 41, ‘Jupiter’, K551
English Baroque Soloists / John Eliot Gardiner
Soli Deo Gloria SDG711 (67’ · DDD) Recorded live 2006. Buy from Amazon
Over 20 years after his first recordings of these symphonies, John Eliot Gardiner appears to have heeded Leopold Mozart’s words: ‘Each tempo, slow or fast, has its gradations.’ Look to the slow movements first and the dotted semiquaver/demi-semiquaver opening theme of No 39. Its rising phrases are sinuously inflected, in stark contrast to the sharply accented ones in the F minor transition to the second subject. Yielding lyricism gives way to tighter control. Gardiner’s lack of rigidity expresses changes, yet the music moves at the prescribed Andante con moto. He’s no different in the Andante cantabile of No 41 with muted violins and violas; and, again, a tense transition to the second subject.
The other movements have gradations too. The Minuet of No 39 is more expansive than of yore, Gardiner even allowing Rachel Becket (flute) and Guy Cowley (clarinet) to embellish their parts in the Trio. And, despite rapid tempi, both finales have nuances not heard in the previous recordings. This time Gardiner doesn’t repeat the second part of No 41’s finale but he is still mightily impressive. Indeed, impressive performances all round but the full might of the orchestra hasn’t been captured: bassoons, cellos and basses are ill-defined. Nevertheless, this is a fine adjunct to Charles Mackerras (see above).
Symphonies Nos 39-41. Bassoon Concerto
Jane Gower (bn) Anima Eterna / Jos van Immerseel
Zig-Zag Territoires ZZT030501 (104’ · DDD) Buy from Amazon
Jos van Immerseel sets quickish tempi in almost all the movements of Symphonies Nos 39 and 40. The overall effect is of vitality, brightness and clarity, with contrapuntal interplay much more apparent than usual. There are few of the usual tragic overtones in the gracefully played Andante of No 39, or the usual darkness and foreboding in No 40. All this comes partly from the period instruments and the perceptive way they’re handled. Van Immerseel balances them carefully, has little or no string vibrato and clearly requires precise articulation. That’s why we hear more of the inner lines.
In the Jupiter, however, the approach is less chamber-music-like. This is a trumpets-and-drums symphony, so the manner is more forceful, sometimes rather abrupt; but the first movement is powerfully shaped. Again a quickish Andante with Mozart’s textures illuminated to fine effect. The dense writing in the Minuet profits from a finely balanced texture, and so above all does the finale, where you’re constantly aware of all that’s going on below the surface. It’s passionate, too: listen to those timpani thwacks in the development and the power of the extraordinary recapitulation. The amazing five-part counterpoint of the coda is heard with unprecedented clarity.
These may not be everyone’s performances. But they should be treasured: if you think you know these symphonies back to front, these versions will enable you to listen to the music afresh and hear new things in it.
The Bassoon Concerto filler is enjoyably played by Jane Gower on a period bassoon, delightfully uneven in tone but always beautifully tuned and with many neatly imaginative touches.
