This CD is reissued by ArkivMusic.
Notes and Editorial Reviews
Marriner gives these works strength and expressive force in the right proportions, and brings to them an unselfconscious approach that ultimately reveals the music's greatness more than many others committed to disc.
Real Mozartian charm, character and invention Start being the norm rather than the exception in [the late symphonies], and the flowing Andante of Symphony No. 21 is a case in point, looking forward in style to the mature operas and especially the Countess's music in Le nozze di Figaro. The minuet, too, is a distinctly original piece with a strange mock-solemnity and the bourrée-finale also comes as a faint surprise, as does the ltalianate tarantella-like one of No. 22 (the booklet says
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"jig", but I don't agree). The famous G minor, No. 25, is exciting but its Storm and Stress elements aren't overdone and one notices the bassoons that rightly add a certain darkness to the sound. From now on, listening becomes exciting and there are new thrills around every corner, far too many for me to list here. The orchestral playing (say, in every movement of No. 28) is stylishly deft yet graceful, while with No. 29, which is just as well done (though is the finale just a trace pushed along?), we are already among the masterpieces of a familiar repertory.
The Paris Symphony (No. 31) is followed by its alternative Andante, written for an impresario who didn't like the first one ("the new one pleases me even more", Mozart admitted), and when a new note of ceremony seems to be sounded in such works as the Haffner, Linz and Prague Symphonies with their biggish orchestras and more subtle use of wind instruments (the last two of which also have a slow introduction to the opening movement), Marriner is again right on the ball interpretatively. The same goes for the great final triptych of symphonies, Nos. 39, 40 and 41, composed during a miraculous summer of 1788. Although some people might feel that a greater weight might be brought to the Jupiter, to my mind Marriner gives this work and the C minor (No. 40) strength and expressive force in the right proportions, and brings to them an unselfconscious approach that ultimately reveals the music's greatness more than many others committed to disc. Please note, too, the good wind playing here, balanced slightly forward but not unnaturally so, and that the orchestra never sounds so big as to depart from eighteenth-century style.
-- Gramophone [12/1990, reviewing Philips 422502]
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Works on This Recording
1.
Symphony no 21 in A major, K 134 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Conductor:
Sir Neville Marriner
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Academy of St. Martin in the Fields
Period: Classical
Written: 1772; Salzburg, Austria
2.
Symphony no 22 in C major, K 162 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Conductor:
Sir Neville Marriner
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Academy of St. Martin in the Fields
Period: Classical
Written: 1773; Salzburg, Austria
3.
Symphony no 23 in D major, K 181 (162b) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Conductor:
Sir Neville Marriner
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Academy of St. Martin in the Fields
Period: Classical
Written: 1773; Salzburg, Austria
6.
Symphony no 40 in G minor, K 550 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Conductor:
Sir Neville Marriner
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Academy of St. Martin in the Fields
Period: Classical
Written: 1788; Vienna, Austria
8.
Symphony no 27 in G major, K 199 (161b) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Conductor:
Sir Neville Marriner
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Academy of St. Martin in the Fields
Period: Classical
Written: 1773; Salzburg, Austria
11.
Symphony no 30 in D major, K 202 (186b) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Conductor:
Sir Neville Marriner
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Academy of St. Martin in the Fields
Period: Classical
Written: 1774; Salzburg, Austria
14.
Symphony no 32 in G major, K 318 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Conductor:
Sir Neville Marriner
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Academy of St. Martin in the Fields
Period: Classical
Written: 1779; Salzburg, Austria
15.
Symphony no 33 in B flat major, K 319 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Conductor:
Sir Neville Marriner
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Academy of St. Martin in the Fields
Period: Classical
Written: 1779; Salzburg, Austria
16.
Symphony no 34 in C major, K 338 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Conductor:
Sir Neville Marriner
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Academy of St. Martin in the Fields
Period: Classical
Written: 1780; Salzburg, Austria
18.
Symphony no 36 in C major, K 425 "Linz" by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Conductor:
Sir Neville Marriner
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Academy of St. Martin in the Fields
Period: Classical
Written: 1783; Linz, Austria
19.
Minuet in C major, K 409 (383f) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Conductor:
Sir Neville Marriner
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Academy of St. Martin in the Fields
Period: Classical
Written: 1782; Vienna, Austria
20.
Symphony no 37 in G major, K 444 (425a) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Conductor:
Sir Neville Marriner
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Academy of St. Martin in the Fields
Period: Classical
Written: 1783; Linz, Austria
21.
Symphony no 38 in D major, K 504 "Prague" by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Conductor:
Sir Neville Marriner
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Academy of St. Martin in the Fields
Period: Classical
Written: 1786; Vienna, Austria
22.
Symphony no 39 in E flat major, K 543 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Conductor:
Sir Neville Marriner
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Academy of St. Martin in the Fields
Period: Classical
Written: 1788; Vienna, Austria
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