5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Easy listening to unburden your worries, June 10, 2008
This review is from: Leopold Mozart: Four Symphonies (Audio CD)
The choice you have here is simple. It is very historically interesting to have a CD of Leopold Mozart's music. Obviously we shouldn't expect anything other than very pleasant and lively music in the Classical tradition.
And that's just what this CD provides. It's perfect if you want involving musical textures, but not intellectual depths. The music courses along easily, with ear-pleasing developments. This isn't music of a major rediscovery, and it sounds like early Wolfgang but with more zest (or vice versa: early Wolfgang sounds like Leopold). Either way, it makes for very enjoyable listening if you want music to read with.
Georg Mais and the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra play the music cleanly, though the harpsichord and the slightly boxy sound give the music a hint flavor of rusticity. The music gets its proper Classical proportions. Buy this CD if you are interested in Classical-era music in general, if you like Mozart history, and if you just want some easy listening. It's an affordable buy, as well.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Pleasant, September 17, 2008
This review is from: Leopold Mozart: Four Symphonies (Audio CD)
If your sole acquaintance with the music of Leopold Mozart is with his Toy Symphony, this CD should provide much intellectual substance. Leopold was a highly accomplished composer. The works on this CD, from the 1750's and 1760's, show much inventiveness, even if they have none of the melodic inspiration of his son's work. The attention to structure is always interesting--these are three and four movement works--and Leopold's sense of harmony is keen. My first acquaintance with Georg Mais and the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra came in the '90's with releases on the Excelsior label marketed by Sam Goody. They are an estimable ensemble, playing with precision and taste if not with the sumptuous string tone of groups like the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields or the English Chamber Orchestra. Their work on this album is refreshingly vivid, and is captured in very good, detailed sound engineering. You will enjoy Leopold Mozart's music in its own right, as well as for the experience of the sensibility of the man who formulated his great son's education.
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