The Mozartists - Sturm und Drang, Vol. 1 - Beck, Gluck, Haydn, Jommelli, Traetta (2020) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

This is the first project in a seven-volume series exploring the Sturm und Drang movement, which swept through all art forms in the between the early 1760s and 1780s. The purpose of this movement was to frighten and perturb through the use of wild and subjective emotional means of expression.

This series of Sturm und Drang recordings incorporates iconic compositions by Mozart, Gluck and, above all, Joseph Haydn, but it also includes largely forgotten or neglected works by less familiar names. The music featured on this disc was all composed in the 1760s. It includes ballet and opera as well as symphonies, but is drawn together by the hallmarks of the remarkably visceral and dynamic style of music that we now call Sturm und Drang.

"Page’s projects with The Mozartists are distinguished not only by exemplary standards of performance but also by the ambition and imagination that underpin them…[Skerath] is suitably dramatic in first recordings of arias from operas by Jommelli and Traetta…What horns (Gavin Edwards and Nick Benz), and with what freedom they are encouraged to make their mark!…The playing throughout is excellent and the programme is as deeply satisfying as the project’s entire conception." (Gramophone Magazine)

"This music from the turbulent 1760s — the first part of a seven-disc project, performed with great brilliance — is a startling ear-opener…it’s composers ignored in most textbooks — Tommaso Traetta (a ferociously dramatic recitative from his opera Sofonisba) and Franz Beck(a remarkable G minor symphony) — who really make you sit up." (Sunday Times)

"The real discovery here is the 22-minute symphony by Franz Beck from the early 1760s which sounds as though it should have been written 35 years later; a real gem for strings and horns only. The Swiss soprano Chiara Skerath is splendidly dramatic and elegantly hysterical (a truly 18th-century concept) without straying from period norms." (Classical Music)

TRACKLIST

1. The Mozartists & Ian Page - Don Juan, Final Scene (Larghetto)
2. The Mozartists & Ian Page - Fetonte: "Ombre che tacite qui sede"
3. The Mozartists & Ian Page - La Canterina, Hob. XXVIII/2: “Non v’è chi mi aiuta”
4. The Mozartists & Ian Page - Symphony in G Minor, Op. 3, No. 3: I. Allegro con spirito
5. The Mozartists & Ian Page - Symphony in G Minor, Op. 3, No. 3: II. Andante un poco adagio
6. The Mozartists & Ian Page - Symphony in G Minor, Op. 3, No. 3: III. Minuetto e Trio
7. The Mozartists & Ian Page - Symphony in G Minor, Op. 3, No. 3: IV. Presto
8. The Mozartists & Ian Page - Sofonisba: “Crudeli, ahimè, che fate?”
9. The Mozartists & Ian Page - Sofonisba: “Sofonisba, che aspetti?”
10. The Mozartists & Ian Page - Symphony No. 49 in F Minor, Hob. I/49 ‘La Passione’: I. Adagio
11. The Mozartists & Ian Page - Symphony No. 49 in F Minor, Hob. I/49 ‘La Passione’: II. Allegro di molto
12. The Mozartists & Ian Page - Symphony No. 49 in F Minor, Hob. I/49 ‘La Passione’: III. Menuet e Trio
13. The Mozartists & Ian Page - Symphony No. 49 in F Minor, Hob. I/49 ‘La Passione’: IV. Presto



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