Mozart - Symphonies Nos 15 - 18 Hybrid SACD, SACD

This disc is labeled as Volume 5, presumably of a complete traversal of all of the Mozart Symphonies? One may hope so after hearing these four early symphonies, played with such verve.

Let me begin with nothing but praise for the multiple channel, surround sound, super audio high resolution sound. A listener is simply encouraged to bask and revel, immersed in the charming and vital sounds of the young Mozart and the Danish chamber orchestra who perform him. If this is a demonstration disc, it is notable for its keen, true tonal verities, and the sharp, shining edges of its instrumental intonation and phrasing, so articulate. We have that other kind of demo disc, then, one where the music is all and meant to be all. The engineers have chosen to capture the band pretty close up, with just a touch of the hall resonance stemming from this venue, the Danish Radio Concert Hall in Copenhagen. So far as it goes, the venue is full-frequency, intimately spacious sounding, and both clear and bright.

This band is a modern instrument band. They do play in a manner which sounds healthily indebted to HIP manners. Tempos are quick, lively. Slower movements are moving, flowing. Phrasing is deft, pointed, rather than broad. You always feel you can hear just where this reading is coming from, where this reading is going. The softer playing is well nigh a passing miracle of its own. Thanks perhaps to high resolution technical capabilities, the band can get really, really soft without disappearing from your listening room. Balances among band departments - strings, woodwinds, brass - are exemplary. The DRS plays with the sort of flexible, alert ensemble we more ordinarily associate with quartets, quintets, sextets, and the like.

Credit must go to Adam Fischer. He does here in Mozart, what he rather did in Haydn in that complete symphonies set with the HIP band, Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra. I think you can still get the complete set of discs on budget label Brilliant Classics. (33 discs) Along with the Antal Dorati on modern instruments, Fischer's Haydn rises high to the mark.

If one is going to lodge any complaint against Fischer and company, it would have to be that their grasp of Mozart in these four early symphonies is too Haydnesque, perhaps not romantic or big band enough. That is a shaky quibble, however. These youthful works were written in 1772, four years before the American Revolution, and the European Enlightenment was in full swing. The Haydn brothers, Franz Josef and Michael were alive and composing. Indeed, we later had some confusion concerning authorship, and for a while Michael's 25th symphony was erroneously believed to be Mozart.

The four symphonies are all dated from Salzburg. They show the young Mozart's fluent grasp of classical forms and manners, with many added touches of his own that will later mature into the special greatness we customarily attribute to the last six symphonies. If we are far from the Jupiter here, or even the Linz, it is still a happy visit to have the young Mozart around, carried through in such attentively happy readings.

Now with volumes five and six released, one wonders where in the world volumes one through four are? The two volumes so far released augur well and most especially, for a wonderful complete set of all the symphonies of Mozart. No doubt, this band and this conductor have gotten a marvelous grip on the earlier works; only time will tell how they carry things through, to perform the deeper and wilder, more dramatic mysteries of the last six symphonies. Given how well Fischer did with mature Haydn, one cannot avoid having very high hopes indeed. Five stars.

I simply love the SACD - it is a pure delight with an orchestra like the Danish Radio Sinfonietta.
Alle the way through the sonority is tranparent, nuanced and yet full!
At the same time it is an in period interpretation (as you could expect it) and also there seems to be new aspects of these rather unknown symphonies. I simply love Adam Fischer's choice of tempi - rather fast, but continuingly caressing the details of the music.
This is a highly recommendable cd...