Mozart’s Mannheim: Cannabich, Mozart, Vogler
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Label: Deutsche Grammophon
Cat No: 4863502
Format: CD
Number of Discs: 1
Release Date: 26th May 2023
Contents
Works
Symphony no.55 in C majorViolin Concerto in F major
Gunther von Schwarzburg
» Overture
Alcandro, lo confesso... Non so d'onde viene, K294Symphony no.52 in C major, K208/K102
Sextet in B flat major
» I Andante grazioso - Allegro
Der Kaufmann von Smyrna » Overture
Artists
Gottfried von der Goltz (violin)Nicole Chevalier (soprano)
Freiburger Barockorchester
Conductor
Gottfried von der GoltzWorks
Symphony no.55 in C majorViolin Concerto in F major
Gunther von Schwarzburg
» Overture
Alcandro, lo confesso... Non so d'onde viene, K294Symphony no.52 in C major, K208/K102
Sextet in B flat major
» I Andante grazioso - Allegro
Der Kaufmann von Smyrna » Overture
Artists
Gottfried von der Goltz (violin)Nicole Chevalier (soprano)
Freiburger Barockorchester
Conductor
Gottfried von der GoltzAbout
The Freiburger Barockorchester and Deutsche Grammophon launch their new creative partnership with an album of works associated with the celebrated Mannheim court orchestra
The recording captures the spirit of a city whose musical life made a lasting impact on the young Mozart.
Mozart’s Mannheim couples little-known gems with works written by Mozart during his formative visit to Mannheim.
The album includes no fewer than four world-premiere recordings:
- Christian Cannabich’s Symphony no.55
- Christian Danner’s Violin Concerto in F major
- Carl Joseph Toeschi’s Sextet for flute, oboe, violin, viola, bassoon and cello
- Georg Joseph Vogler’s Overture to Der Kaufmann von Smyrna
Mozart’s Mannheim has been carefully curated to give 21st-century listeners an idea of the sound world experienced by Mozart when he visited Mannheim in the late 1770s. The southern German city’s legendary court orchestra made it a go-to destination for 18th-century cultural pilgrims and the Freiburger Barockorchester (FBO) has chosen to paint a musical portrait of Mannheim for its debut Deutsche Grammophon album. Mozart’s Mannheim presents a variety of orchestral and chamber pieces by Cannabich, Danner, Holzbauer, Toeschi and Vogler – including four world-premiere recordings – as well as two key works composed by Mozart while he was in the city.
“The Mannheim court of Elector Carl Theodor was famous for its vast orchestra in which the very best instrumentalists of their day played together,” explains Martin Bail, Dramaturge of the FBO. “That’s why we decided to begin our partnership with DG with music created in Mannheim around the time of Mozart’s visit in 1777-78.”
Dr Rüdiger Thomsen-Fürst of the Forschungszentrum Hof | Musik | Stadt in Schwetzingen, an expert on Mannheim’s orchestra and its composers, followed the evidence trail left by Mozart’s letters to his family and used the insights they contain about his relationship with fellow composers and rivals to shape the FBO’s programme. “Mozart’s correspondence reveals how he encountered the leading musicians of the Mannheim court orchestra,” he notes. “There were those such as Cannabich with whom he became friends, those from whom he remained distant and those such as Vogler for whom he harboured a certain animosity. His letters also tell us something about the music he discovered in Mannheim and the works he wrote or performed there. The music we’ve chosen therefore represents an attempt to allow today’s listeners to hear something of what he heard in his day.”
Having first passed through Mannheim as a touring child prodigy, Mozart returned in October 1777 at the age of 21. He was instantly enchanted by the power and presence of the Mannheim orchestra, which as well as being famed for its exceptional size and virtuosity, was responsible for developing an array of arresting dynamic effects. Mozart remained in the city until the following March, during which time he composed sonatas for violin and keyboard, songs, works for solo piano, concert arias, quartets for strings and wind instruments, and his first concerto for flute and orchestra, among other works.
Mozart’s Mannheim opens with the Overture to Georg Joseph “Abbé” Vogler’s Der Kaufmann von Smyrna as Mozart might have heard it in February 1778, before continuing with Cannabich’s Symphony no.55 in C major, a dazzling display of the tonal shadings and dramatic effects and contrasts that hallmarked the Mannheim sound. Its orchestration includes clarinets, an addition to the woodwind section that particularly impressed Mozart when he heard the orchestra perform. The symphony is followed by Christian Danner’s elegant Violin Concerto, written soon after its composer began taking lessons in Mannheim with Mozart, and played by the FBO’s joint Artistic Director Gottfried von der Goltz.
The outstanding quality of music made by Mannheim composers is further reflected in two strikingly different works: Carl Joseph Toeschi’s Sextet for flute, oboe, violin, viola, bassoon and cello and the Overture to Ignaz Holzbauer’s singspiel Günther von Schwarzburg, a performance of which led Mozart to write to his father Leopold, amazed at “how much fire there is in this music”.
The album is rounded off by two works by Mozart himself. Soprano Nicole Chevalier performs the concert aria Alcandro lo confesso … Non sò d’onde vieni, first performed by Mozart’s future sister‑in‑law Aloysia in early 1778. “With this final aria,” wrote Mozart to his father, “my dear Mlle Weber brought incredible honour both to herself and to me.” Like the aria, his Symphony in C K208/102 was premiered in the home of fellow musician Cannabich. Its first two movements had begun life in 1775 as the Sinfonia and opening aria respectively of the serenata Il re pastore, while the finale was newly composed in Mannheim.
“What Mozart learned in Mannheim cannot be overstated in terms of its value to his later life,” concludes Martin Bail. “After this time, he reached new levels of quality, individuality and originality. The FBO and Deutsche Grammophon have followed Mozart to Mannheim to create a programme of the music he heard and learned from there. What better place to begin our collaboration?”
Formed in 1987 by a group of like-minded students at the internationally renowned Hochschule für Musik Freiburg, the Freiburger Barockorchester stands today among the world’s foremost period-instrument orchestras. The self-governing ensemble is run according to its own carefully defined artistic credo. Like the Mannheim court orchestra of the 1770s, it usually works without a conductor and draws concerto soloists from its own players. Whether performing well-known or newly discovered music, the FBO’s musicians aim to discover the context in which a work was written and what its composer’s intentions were, so as to bring the highest degree of authenticity to their interpretations. Under the joint artistic direction of fortepianist Kristian Bezuidenhout and violinist Gottfried von der Goltz since 2017, it has extended its repertoire in recent seasons to embrace music from the 19th century.
Sound/Video
Paused
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1Vogler: Der Kaufmann von Smyrna: Overture
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2Cannabich: Symphony No.55 in C major: 1. Allegro maestoso
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3Cannabich: Symphony No.55 in C major: 2. Andante non tanto
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4Cannabich: Symphony No.55 in C major: 3. Presto ma non troppo
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5Danner: Violin Concerto in F major: 1. Allegro moderato
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6Danner: Violin Concerto in F major: 2. Adagio
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7Danner: Violin Concerto in F major: 3. Rondeau
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8Toeschi: Sextet in B flat major for flute, oboe, bassoon and string trio: Andante grazioso – Allegro
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9Holzbauer: Günther von Schwarzburg: Overture
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10Mozart: Alcandro, lo confesso ... Non so d’onde viene, K294: 1. Alcandro, lo confesso
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11Mozart: Alcandro, lo confesso ... Non so d’onde viene, K294: 2. Non so d’onde viene
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12Mozart: Symphony in C major, K208/102 (213c): 1. Molto allegro
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13Mozart: Symphony in C major, K208/102 (213c): 2. Andantino (reconstr. Bärbel Pelker)
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14Mozart: Symphony in C major, K208/102 (213c): 3. Presto assai
Europadisc Review
Billed as the launch of a ‘new creative partnership’ between the Freiburger Barockorchester and Deutsche Grammophon, the renowned period-instrument ensemble’s latest album focuses on Mozart’s stay in Mannheim: a key stage in the composer’s artistic development. Mozart visited the court in south west Germany four times, but it is his second stay – a lengthy sojourn with his mother, Anna Maria, from late October 1777 to mid-March 1778, in the hopes of securing a court position – that is best documented thanks to the letters back home to family members in Salzburg. At this time, the Mannheim court was one of the most renowned in all the German-speaking lands, not least for the quality of its music making.
As the seat of the Elector Palatine (from 1716–42 Carl Philipp, and from 1742–99 his much younger nephew Carl Theodor), Mannheim boasted a particularly strong reputation in the arts, as well as in the lavishness of its court spectacles, including opera, theatre and musical ‘academies’ (concerts with a strong socialising aspect). Its orchestra, under the direction first of Johann Stamitz and then of his student Christian Cannabich, was legendary on account of not merely its size (roughly double that of Haydn’s in Eszterháza, for instance), but also the quality of its playing. Stamitz was thorough in the training of his orchestral string colleagues, introducing uniform bowings (at that time a great innovation) which enhanced the precision and attack of the whole ensemble. Several of the orchestra members were composers in their own right, leading Charles Burney to make the famous declaration that this was ‘an army of generals, equally fit to plan a battle, as to fight it.’
The case for a distinctive ‘Mannheim School’ of composition, first made in the early 20th century by the musicologist Hugo Riemann, has in recent decades been called into question. Nevertheless, the Mannheim composers – particularly those of the second generation – undoubtedly exploited devices such as dynamic contrasts and gradation, crescendos and diminuendos (all with their origins in the three-movement sinfonias of Italian opera) as a means of displaying the skill of the orchestra, and thereby enhancing the projection of power and influence (artistic and political) by the Electorate.
Under the direction of concertmaster Gottfried von der Goltz, the Freiburger Barockorchester, though slightly smaller than the Mannheim band, is ideally suited to the task of evoking this heady period in German musical history. Their unanimity of attack and attention to dynamic nuance is already evident in the overture to Georg Joseph Vogler’s opera Der Kaufmann von Smyrna, even if Mozart himself was scornful of Vogler himself (‘a dreary musical jester, an exceedingly conceited and rather incompetent fellow. The whole orchestra dislikes him.’). But the fun really starts with Cannabich’s Symphony No.55 in C major, a three-movement work in the Italianate form, which thrives on bold contrasts, full-orchestra effects and rousing tuttis, and which includes in its scoring a pair of clarinets, of which Mozart was so envious. It receives a blindingly virtuosic performance here which would surely have delighted Burney.
The unexpected variety of the Mannheimers’ music is well-illustrated by the Violin Concerto in F major from the pen of Christian Danner, a pupil of Mozart’s during the latter’s stay. The opening movement has a relaxed, galant feel to it, and although the soloist (here, von der Goltz himself) takes time to enter, the demands of the solo part – including octave arpeggios in the minore episode – make the wait more than worthwhile. The second movement is a dreamy, soft-focus Adagio, while the concluding Rondeau is a breezy compound-time jaunt, with a rustic tinge (listen to those horns!) that is given further edge by some glassy sul ponticello effects in the final episode.
Further variety is provided by an enchanting Sextet for flute, oboe, bassoon and string trio by Carl Joseph Toeschi, a contemporary of Cannabich’s now best remembered for his flute quartets. With the added wind instruments at his disposal here, he deploys a range of characterful solo work (including for the bassoon), which ensures that the impact of this nine-minute, two-movement work is far greater than its dimensions might suggest.
One of the senior Mannheim composers, Ignaz Holzbauer, is represented by the imposing overture to his 1777 opera Günther von Schwarzburg, one of the first native non-comic German operas, which Mozart saw while in Mannheim. Writing home, he was full of praise for the older composer: ‘What surprises me most of all is that a man as old as Holzbauer should still possess so much spirit: for you can’t imagine what fire there is in that music.’ The impact of the opening chords in particular surely made a mark on the equivalent point in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte.
Finally, Goltz and his colleagues turn their attention to Mozart himself, in the form of two works dating from his Mannheim stay. The concert aria ‘Alcandro, lo confesso’, K294, was written for his Mannheim singing pupil (and future sister-in-law) Aloysia Weber, and this marvellously engaging and expressive performance by soprano Nicole Chevalier evokes Mozart’s description of Aloysia’s ‘beautiful pure voice’. Added to that, Chevalier is able to invest with a dramatic and emotional power that is deeply affecting.
To close, we get a three-movement Mozart symphony that won’t feature in most lists. Set in C major, its first movement was taken from the opening sinfonia of Il re pastore, the central Andante (reconstructed here by Bärbel Pelker) from an aria in the same work, and only the concluding Presto assai is new. Yet the thrill of this performance, its razor-edge tuttis and expressive wind and string playing, are more than worthy of the ‘Mannheim’ tag. Indeed, the album as a whole, expertly recorded by the DG team in Freiburg’s Ensemblehaus in March 2022, valuably enhances our understanding of the ‘Mannheim School’ and its influence on Mozart. A marvellous beginning to what promises to be a fruitful partnership!
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