Mozart

Mozart String Quintet in C Major: The Emerson Quartet and Kim Kashkashian

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The addition of one guest to an intimate gathering or party can change the dynamic, completely. Especially when the guest is a warmly welcomed newcomer. This is what we hear in Mozart’s String Quintet No. 3 in C Major, K. 515. It’s a piece written for string quartet with an added viola. That second viola changes the piece’s sound and vibe, dramatically. It becomes richer, warmer, and more sonorous. As a 16-year-old, Mozart was …

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New Release: Mitsuko Uchida Plays Mozart Piano Concertos 17, 25

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Pianist Mitsuko Uchida and the Cleveland Orchestra have released a new album featuring two Mozart Piano Concertos (No. 17 and 25). The performances were recorded live at Severance Hall last February. Over the past five years, Uchida and the Cleveland Orchestra have recorded select Mozart Piano Concertos on the Decca label. This is the fourth and final album in the series. (The first won a Grammy in 2011). Mitsuko Uchida recently offered this …

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Remembering Sir Neville Marriner

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Every great conductor started out as an accomplished instrumentalist. Look at the biography of Sir Neville Marriner, who passed away yesterday at the age of 92, and you’ll be reminded of this truism. In the 1950s, Marriner performed as a violinist in two celebrated orchestras: the Philharmonia and the London Symphony. For 13 years, he served as second violinist of the Martin String Quartet. He first picked up a baton around age 40. …

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Five Great Perlman Recordings

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This weekend, Itzhak Perlman will join the Richmond Symphony for our season-opening Masterworks program. The Mendelssohn Violin Concerto is on the program for this already-sold-out concert. And unlike this recent BNY Mellon TV commercial, it’s safe to assume Rhea Perlman will not be attempting to fill in. (That’s the introduction of the Mendelssohn in the background of the commercial). Perlman is one of a handful of musicians who has achieved genuine celebrity status …

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Mozart’s “Haffner” Symphony: Music of Celebration

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A new commission was the last thing the 26-year-old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wanted in the summer of 1782. He had just moved to the musical mecca of Vienna, shaking off the provincialism of his native Salzburg and its “coarse, slovenly, dissolute court musicians.” In addition to a busy teaching and composition schedule, he was getting ready to move to a new house in preparation for his marriage to Constanze Weber. But in July, 1782, …

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A Snapshot of Figaro

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Last month we listened to an excerpt from Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s great new live concert recording of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. Here are a few more highlights from that recording. Almost all of Mozart’s music grows out of opera. Passages from the symphonies and concertos can be heard as wordless arias and duets. It’s as if Mozart couldn’t shut off the stream of characters and vague hints of far-off dramatic …

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New Release: Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s Marriage of Figaro

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Today marks an exciting and long-anticipated release in the world of opera: conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s brand new live concert recording of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and an all-star cast. Nézet-Séguin was recently named successor to James Levine at the Metropolitan Opera, perhaps the most visible opera post in the world. This disk, recorded live at the 2,500-seat Baden-Baden Festspielhaus, is the latest in a series of Mozart operas Nézet-Séguin has released on the Deutsche Grammophon label. …

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