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Sturm und Drang, Vol. 3
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Leopold Kozeluch - Giovanni Paisiello - Franz Joseph Haydn - Anton Schweitzer

Sturm und Drang, Vol. 3

The Mozartists

Label: Signum Classics
Format: CD
Barcode: 0635212075920
barcode
Catalog number: SIGCD 759
Releasedate: 06-10-23

- The Paisiello has never previously been recorded, and this is the first recording on period instruments of the Kozeluch symphony.
- This is Emily Pogorelc’s first recording with orchestra; her début recital disc is due to be released on Deutsche Gramophon in September. She is an Associate Artist of The Mozartists, and a member of the ensemble at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich.
- This is The Mozartists’ first disc to be recorded since the onset of the Covid pandemic; it was scheduled to be made in January 2021, but after a day of rehearsal it had to be postponed due to the sudden announcement of new lockdown regulations.

Like the first two releases in The Mozartists’ ongoing ‘Sturm und Drang’ series, this recording comprises three highly dramatic and turbulent orchestral works interspersed with similarly highly-charged vocal items. The repertoire dates from between 1771 and 1788, and again includes one of Haydn’s great minor-key symphonies – this time arguably the greatest of them all, the ‘Trauer’. For the first time in the series Mozart is also represented, in the form of his extraordinarily visceral and darkly chromatic Adagio and Fugue in C minor, and the disc opens with an outstanding G minor symphony by the Czech composer Leopold Kozeluch, whose quality, sweep and lyricism will surprise many listeners.

The two vocal works are genuine rarities. Schweitzer’s Alceste was one of the earliest attempts to create German tragic opera in the vernacular, and it launches with an aria of searing intensity. The scene from Paisiello’s Annibale in Torino – the twenty-third of his eighty-seven operas –features an exquisite but brief arioso before leading into a stormy G minor aria. The soloist is the exciting young American soprano Emily Pogorelc, and Ian Page again conducts his award-winning period-instrument ensemble.