recommended recordings

·     Chamber ·     Choral ·     Collections ·     Concerti ·     Opera ·     Orchestral ·     Solo Mozart: Grosse Messe KV 427, etc / Leonard Bernstein Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Conductor: Leonard Bernstein Performer: Arleen Augˇr, Cornelius Hauptmann, et al. Ensemble: Bavarian Radio Chorus, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra Uni/Deutsche Grammophon - #31791 / May 12, 1992 Click here for more information Leonard Bernstein's performance of this Mass is the finest available. Proof comes from a very unexpected source. A major French classical music magazine conducted a blind listening test of every available performance of this Mass--and this recording was the unanimous choice of the jury. No one was more surprised than they were, but one minute of this blazing performance confirms that they were right. A superb disc. --David Hurwitz Read more Mozart: Exsultate - Sacred Arias / Harnoncourt, Concentus Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Conductor: Nikolaus Harnoncourt Performer: Barbara Bonney, Angela Maria Blasi, et al. Ensemble: Vienna Concentus Musicus, Arnold Schoenberg Choir, et al. Wea/Atlantic/Teldec - #95985 / October 4, 1994 Click here for more information American-born soprano Barbara Bonney provides the sparkle in this ebullient account of Mozart's gem of a cantata, Exsultate jubilate (K. 165). Harnoncourt and his charges do a lovely job with the orchestral pages of the setting, originally written to accompany the singing of the castrato Venanzio Rauzzini. Equally well done is the youthful C Minor Missa solemnis (K. 139), which in many ways looks forward to the great C Minor Mass (K. 427) and to the operas of Mozart's...Read more

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