Customer Reviews

Mozart: The Concert Arias

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Can't get enough of sublime Mozartian aria music? This complete compilation of concert arias should be part of every Mozart lover's collection, especially as a supplement to better known opera arias. There are gems among the concert collection that challenge even the loveliest of Mozart's better known operatic work. I can't say this is the only version of the concert arias ever to buy... the more versions I hear, the more I love the different interpretations. But if you're only going to sample one set, this could be the winner. The singers represented are masters of the Mozart craft; one virtuoso piece after another - for five discs, each over an hour long! The arrangement of voices, mostly soprano (since they sing the originally castrati arias as well), is also wonderful; no one sound is heard for too long before a very different one takes its place to give a contrasting flavor. And they're all in top form: Kiri Te Kanawa with her trademark creamy mildness is followed by Edita Gruberova's agile, silver-haunted coloratura. Teresa Berganza, whom I usually link with mezzo roles, is a tour de force of golden warmth; her Ch'io mi scordi de te? on disc 3 (piano accompaniment originally played by Mozart himself) is magnificent and deserves special note. Krisztina Laki and Elfriede Hobarth were lesser known to me; both are quite fine, although Laki's crystal sweetness is stronger and more pitch-perfect than Hobarth's, particularly in the highest notes of some mind-boggling musical phrases. The final 1.5 discs are handed to the men; Gosta Winbergh sings the tenor arias with heroic beauty and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Fernando Corena as the bass-baritones are simply the richly toned legends one would expect. A very nice booklet with notes, lyrics and translations to each aria is included. It's a marvelous set; one of my favorite discoveries.

This has to be the ultimate compendium of these undeservedly neglected arias. Many of the arias themselves rival the most glorious moments in the operas, and some of them, particularly the high soprano arias, are highly-charged vocal stuntfests that have to be heard to be believed.

This set has much to recommend it but does have one major technical flaw. Every copy that I have heard (and that is several) has a skip near the end of Track 10 of Disc 1. It seems to be part of the master and many listeners will be able to live with it, but I do wish that producers would take the time to fix a defect like this for such a significant musical document. Purists beware!

The LA Reviewer said it all and I totally agree. The sound is wonderful and singing top notch. A great discovery and a must for any opera collector. Mozart gets better the more you listen to his opera compositions - the set contains many of the outstanding arias not always done in concert but which are lovely and some rediscoveries. Also, our recent loss of Winbergh makes this a buy as we don't have alot of recordings of his beautiful tenor voice. This set features him on 4 arias and his Mozart singing is truly outstanding. This set of 5 CD's a great value and highly recommended.

To my knowledge, this collection first appeared as part of the Time-Life series of Mozart in the late 70s and early 80s. The soprano arias all appeared in one volume, while the tenor and bass/baritone arias appeared elsewhere, the basses as a 5th LP with the Solti Don Giovanni. That issue included a couple of arias for Fischer-Dieskau that did not make it onto these discs. But then, with roughly 75 minutes per disc, I can't complain.

I am not a great lover of Fischer-Dieskau's voice per se, and Fernando Corena sometimes had to use finesse (to disguise vocal purity) more than we like today. But each performance by them, Mr. Windbergh, and all those amazing ladies is priceless. Remember that many of these were "insert" arias for operas by other people, or at least used the texts that had appeared elsewhere. But Mozart makes each one a gem, and the singing is impeccable. There is a lot of poised singing, beautifully phrased and musically molded, but that does not say that there is no personality. And the names who are not so well known - Miss Laki, for example - are still very capable of singing into the stratosphere with great ease, accuracy and beautiful tone. I can't imagine a collection that needs to be in a collection (particularly a Mozart collection) more than this one. I might add that even if you don't know the name Elfriede Hobarth, she sings the hardest and highest arias with incredible aplomb, and if two ultra high notes (Gs above high C?) are a tad flat, I don't care. She is amazing.
(My only quibble is that I would have preferred the arias to appear in the order Mozart wrote them, something easier to do on CD than it was on LP. These discs absolutely duplicate the order of the Soprano Arias release on LP.)
The texts also cover only the arias for the women. Why didn't they consider it important to include texts for the men as well. Where are the informative notes that appeared in the LP issue of the Soprano Arias.

On the plus side, the texts are legible, which means in a type size that doesn't send you to the optometrist.

Love the product and received it record time overseas. Thank you!

The cds arrived at the perfect time. The cd case is a bit awkward and the accompanying liner notes booklet does not fit inside the case. It seems that a box might have been part of the packaging at one time but for the price I can not complain This collection of concert arias is a treasure trove of wonderful repertoire by some of the best singers of their day. It has been so useful in my classes.