Product Overview
Thurston Dart, Joseph Keilberth - Mozart: Serenades (CD ALBUM (1 DISC))A first international CD issue for two contrasting albums of light-orchestral Mozart from Joseph Keilberthand Thurston Dart. The two albums reissued here exemplify the postwar revolution of Classical-era performance styles. Having begun to make records in 1938, the L'Oiseau-Lyre label worked in the vanguard of the period-performance movement, yet in 1951 the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra and its long-time principal conductor Joseph Keilberthwere engaged to record the Symphony KV 201 and the two sets of German Dances. They did so in Paris, the day after giving a concert in the Salle Pleyel to open a tour of France, Spain and Portugal. The sessions prompted a laconic diary reflection from Keilberth 'How hard it is to stick to a really secure 3/4 pulse' but the authors of The Record Guideobserved an unexpected lightness of touch about the results.L'Oiseau-Lyre's founder Louise Dyer continued, however, to engage artists who were scholars as much as musicians none more eminent than Thurston Dart, who had produced a scholarly edition of Couperin's keyboard works on which much of the label's reputationwas founded, and who directed his own ensembles such as the Philomusica of London with a sure and lively touch. This recording of Eine kleineNachtmusikwas the first and still one of the only to insert a replacement for the work's missing first minuet: in this case, Dart's own orchestration of a movement from a piano sonata, following a suggestion made by Alfred Einstein. It was also the first album of Mozart's orchestral music where the instrumentalists used 'period' bows, lighter and differently balanced, lending a natural shapeliness to the phrases. "Joseph Keilberth, one of our most serious Wagnerians, appears here (though not on his other records) as a Mozartian stylist of distinction. He gets his orchestra to play most beautifully; and the recording is very clean and clear, and tonally delightful." The Record Guide(1955) "The result of these exercises is to remove the spuriously symphonic flesh that had over the years overspread this delightfullittle work and to make it what Mozart called it 'a delightful night music' The important thing is that this performance is almost certainly a great deal nearer to what Mozarthimself had in mind than any of the other recorded versions." Gramophone, April 1955 (Dart) Tracklistings: WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756 1791) 1 5 Serenade in G major, KV 525 'Eine kleineNachtmusik' 6 8 Serenata notturna in D major, KV 239 Philomusica of London Thurston Dart 9 12 Symphony No. 29 in A major, KV 201 13 Six German Dances, KV 509 14 Six German Dances, KV 571 Bamberg Symphony Orchestra Joseph Keilberth FIRST CD RELEASE ON DECCA
