Tate/Mozart

[david johnson]

I've been re-listening to my Tate/Mozart complete symphonies from EMI. It is very fine
Do you folks have a favorite Mozart symphony box? I doubt I'll spring for another, but I might.

[jserraglio]

The Academy of Ancient Music/Jaap Schroeder/Christopher Hogwood
1997 19 CDs L'Oiseau-Lyre 0289 452 4962 9

[John F]

I haven't heard Tate conduct any Mozart symphonies, but I did see "Così fan tutte" and "Idomeneo" at the Met in the 1980s - brisk, businesslike, pretty heartless. For the mature symphonies, Furtwängler, Beecham, and Bruno Walter are my kind of conductor; for the earlier ones, it doesn't matter all that much, I got many of them with Leinsdorf on Westminster and all of them on DG with Karl Böhm, they'll do.

Regardless of the somewhat muffled wartime sound, it's Furtwängler's #39 that I return to most often. More than other conductors, though Walter and Beecham got it too, he projects the tragic weight of the slow introduction, with its relentless tread as if of the stone guest in "Don Giovanni, and the transition just before the allegro which seems to express the sorrows of the world.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEn8zZkyHeA

It's such a passage that makes Mozart Mozart. Any conductor who keeps it in tempo and does nothing special with it, definitely including Christopher Hogwood who trivializes the whole introduction, I feel is wasting my time. I've listened to the Jeffrey Tate recording on YouTube and he's got the right idea.

[jserraglio]

I think Hogwood is well worth listening to, though he wouldn't always be my first choice.

"My father's Mozart": Beecham, for sure. Walter obviously. Maybe even WF. Add Szell and Reiner. I also like Ernest Bour (Nos. 25-41). The Bour-SWF Mozart symphonies + other works led by Bour, Kord, Segal & Hogwood are available for download $6.99 here:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Mozart-100-Co ... roduct_top

In the modern era of conductors, I very much like what I've heard of Levine's VPO set. Available for under $35. If I were buying a complete modern set, this would be the one.



I also like the ones I've heard of Mackerras/Prague Chamber Orchestra on Telarc. Very fine in Mozart. Under $30 on Amazon. I might buy this one too, though I already have a couple of the individual volumes.

[Ted Quanrud]

Hi David --

Keeping in mind my preference for period instruments, I also recommend the Hogwood set, aswell as this fine set from Pinnock.

[John F]

Period instruments or not, at least Pinnock doesn't double dot the rhythm in the K.543 introduction. The way Hogwood hops, skips, and jumps through that music is a disgrace.

[jserraglio]

I have Hogwood's on LP. His way is not the only way to play Mozart but it is an honorable one. Furthermore, it doesn't bore me.

[maestrob]

All good suggestions. My own preference with modern instruments goes to Neville Marriner, which has long been a staple in my listening routine.

I had the Hogwood set on Barclay-Crocker reel-to-reel and found it excellently recorded and played, but I'm looking for a replacement by a more recent ensemble, so am watching this thread with interest.

[jserraglio]

How could I forget Marriner? My bad.

Listening now to excerpts from this 2011 Brilliant Classics set on YT for first time. Like what I hear so far.

Links to the physical CDs in the description with timings if you wanna jump to a particular symphony. I'll just bookmark this page and listen to one /day.

Mozart Akademie Amsterdam
Jaap ter Linden (conductor)



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjTLIW-qx_A

[david johnson]

I haven't heard Tate conduct any Mozart symphonies, but I did see "Così fan tutte" and "Idomeneo" at the Met in the 1980s - brisk, businesslike, pretty heartless. For the mature symphonies, Furtwängler, Beecham, and Bruno Walter are my kind of conductor; for the earlier ones, it doesn't matter all that much, I got many of them with Leinsdorf on Westminster and all of them on DG with Karl Böhm, they'll do.

Regardless of the somewhat muffled wartime sound, it's Furtwängler's #39 that I return to most often. More than other conductors, though Walter and Beecham got it too, he projects the tragic weight of the slow introduction, with its relentless tread as if of the stone guest in "Don Giovanni, and the transition just before the allegro which seems to express the sorrows of the world.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEn8zZkyHeA

It's such a passage that makes Mozart Mozart. Any conductor who keeps it in tempo and does nothing special with it, definitely including Christopher Hogwood who trivializes the whole introduction, I feel is wasting my time. I've listened to the Jeffrey Tate recording on YouTube and he's got the right idea.

John F, I used to have that Leinsdorf set.

[John F]

One advantage Leinsdorf had over his successors was his orchestra, credited by Westminster as the London Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra but actually Beecham's Royal Philharmonic. Of course they hadn't played the juvenile symphonies before, under Beecham or anybody else, and they and Leinsdorf were learning the music just well enough to record it. But at that time they were an elite band, with extensive experience in the recording studio for EMI, and it shows in their playing. Besides, if you wanted those symphonies on record at that time, your only alternative was a series on the Concert Hall label with various orchestras and conductors, none of them inspiring. Leinsdorf wasn't the most inspiring conductor either but he ran a tight ship, and some of the series (e.g. Symphony #34) are quite good.