Sung by the amazing German coloratura soprano Simone Kermes. Played by the Venice Baroque Orchestra under the Italian conductor, organist, harpsichordist, and scholar Andrea Marcon.
**IMPORTANT**
As you probably know, the art world is having a really rough time during this pandemic. The royal opera house might even be suspended for a while. In order to help these artists who right now don’t get any money and might even be very close to their last penny, you can donate. We enjoy their art every day of the year. Here’s a time to show support and respect.
Well, we have a thing for Italian at the moment, ever since we posted Rossini’s Barbiere. So here’s another opera sung in Italian, and with subtitles, too!
Don Giovanni: Thomas Allen
Il Commendatore: Sergej Koptchak
Donna Anna: Edita Gruberova
Don Ottavio: Francisco Araiza
Donna Elvira: Ann Murray
Leporello: Claudio Desderi
Masetto: Natale De Carolis
Zerlina: Susanne Mentzer
A light (and short) bit of entertainment for a warm summer Sunday
Leopold Mozart: Toy Symphony
Romanian Youth Orchestra conducted by Cristian Mandeal
Some people say that Joseph Haydn composed the Toy Symphony, others that it was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s father Leopold. Truth be told, I don’t care much who wrote it: It’s a wonderful little piece of music, light and full of joy, one way or another.
1. Sonata in B flat major, Op. 2/1, BuxWV 259
2. Sonata in D major, Op. 2/2, BuxWV 260 7:28
3. Sonata in G minor, Op. 2/3, BuxWV 261 19:24
4. Sonata in C minor, Op. 2/4, BuxWV 262 30:00
5. Sonata in A major, Op. 2/5, BuxWV 263 37:10
6. Sonata in E major, Op. 2/6, BuxWV 264 45:59
7. Sonata in F major, Op. 2/7, BuxWV 265 55:17
Featured an old engraving of the city of Lübeck, where Buxtehude died. Today, the city lies in the northernmost German province of Schleswig-Holstein, but when Buxehude lived there, the Free City of Lübeck belonged to the Holy Roman Empire.
‘Don Giovanni’ is generally regarded as one of Mozart’s supreme achievements and one of the greatest operas of all time, or so they say. See if you agree.
W. A. Mozart’s Don Giovanni
Complete opera with English subtitles
Zurich, 2001
Don Giovanni – Rodney Gilfry
Leporello – László Polgár
Donna Anna – Isabel Rey
Don Ottavio – Roberto Saccà
Donna Elvira – Cecilia Bartoli
Zerlina – Liliana Nikiteanu
Masetto – Oliver Widmer
Commendatore – Matti Salminen
Conductor – Nikolaus Harnoncount
Director – Brian Large
Music – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Libretto – Lorenzo Da Ponte
Georg Philipp Telemann: The Paris Quartets (Pariser Quartette)
1. Concerto Primo in G major 0:00
2. Concerto Secondo in D major 10:13
3. Sonata Prima in A major 20:52
4. Sonata Seconda in G minor 32:31
5. Première Suite in E minor 43:34
6. Deuxième Suite in B minor 1:01:45
Georg Philipp Telemann (1681 – 1767) was a largely self-taught German Baroque composer and multi-instrumentalist. His contemporaries considered him to be one of the leading German composers of the time, and compared him favorably both to his friend Johann Sebastian Bach, who made Telemann the godfather and namesake of his son Carl Philipp Emanuel, and to Georg Friedrich Händel, whom Telemann also knew personally.
The featured image shows the Telemann bench in the Polish town of Żary, located in the east of the historic Lower Lusatia region, in the borderland with the Silesian lowlands and Greater Poland, in other words, close to Germany’s eastern border. Telemann lived and worked in Żary for four years, from 1704 to 1708.
J.J. Fux was employed by three successive emperors, Leopold I, Joseph I and Karl VI. Not sure for whom of the three he wrote this requiem, but Leopold I was surely the one among the three that supported music the most.
Sonata I in D major 0:00
Sonata II in G major 11:38
Sonata III in A major 20:24
Sonata IV in D major 28:28
Sonata V in G major 35:47
Sonata VI in E minor 44:27
Händel, Telemann, Buxtehude – many big names are connected with northern Germany (Hamburg in particular) and Baroque music. So is Johann Mattheson’s (1681 – 1764), native of Hamburg, diplomat, composer, writer and close friend of Georg Friedrich Händel’s. Mattheson is mainly famous as a music theorist and wrote abundantly on performance practice, theatrical style, and harmony of the German Baroque.
The harpsichord was a very popular instrument at the time, although it might take modern ears some time to appreciate it. Enjoy!