So Many Covers Across So Many Labels!

 

Perhaps this is why so few know this recording.

I won't get into a debate regarding the worthiness of an overtures collection, minus the operas following.

Instead, let us focus on what is perhaps the finest performance of a set of Mozart overtures on record.

While Hans Vonk is no stranger to Mozart, remember that recording he made with Sabine Meyer after all, I am sure Vonk isn't the first name which comes to mind when the name Mozart is bandied about.

Here, Vonk leads the Staatskapelle Dresden from 1985, an ensemble who is no stranger to collections of Mozart's overtures. Karl Böhm led a few with them in the 70s, as did Otmar Suitner within the same decade. In the late 90s, Sir Colin Davis recorded a set on RCA in Dresden, which included the composer's earlier Bastien Und Bastienne and Il Rè Pastore overtures. Many like Davis' outing, but I have since moved on (BLOG).

The opening Magic Flute and Marriage of Figaro overtures under Vonk grab the listener by the lapels and never lets us go. He has the Staatskapelle leap into this music with drive, weight, and incisiveness, never letting politeness rule the day.

There is plenty of charming musicality as well, and I like how the Capriccio engineers use the Lukaskirche location to give a sense of occasion and importance without blurring clarity or attack. The little echo chords in the Cosi fan Tutti and Schauspieldirektor overtures are heard as nowhere else, a bit of wonderful musical detail from Vonk and the engineers.

If I had a druther, the Don Giovanni overture could be more frightening, only noticeable, I think, due to its being the last item on this program.

So where has this recording been hiding?

Well, it has been reissued many times, where I have held onto the 2006 Capriccio SACD. Otherwise, these performances have been tossed between many budget labels such as LaserLight, Delta, Eterna on LP, and eventually boxed up with Mozart's Dances and Marches from Hans Graf. I will try to include as many cover images as I can, but if I run out of space aside my typed musings, check below for more. They are not pretty images, that is for sure!

So if you are in the market for a set of Mozart's opera overtures, look no further than this one with 11 of them. If you are not a fan of modern instrument performances of Mozart as this one is, a recording led by Michael Alexander Willens on BIS has been highly touted recently, offering Mozart's early Mitridate overture as an extra, although that period instrument approach is not for me.

 

 

 

Performers
Staatskapelle Dresden
Hans Vonk, conductor

Label: Capriccio
Year: 1986; 2006
Total Timing: 58.32

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the best set of Mozart's overtures on the market, at least in my opinion.

Finding this one should be fairly easy and cheap, but will also probably come used, due to its vagabond wanderings from label to label.

Join the invisible legions vast at The Oozy Keep!