MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

REVIEW


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 

alternatively
CD: MDT AmazonUK AmazonUS

Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART (1756-1791)
Symphony No. 39 in E flat, K543 [30:53]
Symphony No. 41 in C Major, K551 Jupiter [35:56]
The English Baroque Soloists/Sir John Eliot Gardiner
rec. live, 9 February 2006, Cadogan Hall, London
SOLI DEO GLORIA SDG711 [66:51]

Experience Classicsonline
I remember reading about this concert in the press at the time that it was given. In what was then a ground-breaking venture, a CD of these two symphonies was produced pretty much on the spot and was made available to the audience at the end of the evening. What I hadn’t realised, until reading the entertaining booklet note by producer Isabella de Sabata, was that the two symphonies constituted part one of the concert and the disc production, which was not without incident, went on behind the scenes while the audience enjoyed a second half performance of Mozart’s C minor Mass. Since then a few other organisations have followed this path – I attended a concert at Birmingham about eighteen months ago and came away with a live recording of the Berlioz Grand Messe des Morts, no less (review). But, it seems, The English Baroque Soloists got there first, and good for them! Now the recording has been made available to collectors generally.

Miss de Sabata tells us that in preparing the recording for general release “a few adjustments [have been made] and a couple of very disturbing coughs removed.” Whatever editing has gone on seems to have been very discreet and I was left with the feeling that I’d listened to two genuinely ‘live’ readings in good sound and with very little evidence of audience noise.

The performances themselves are spirited and refined and I enjoyed them very much. There may have been a few slight instances of imprecision in the playing that would have been ironed out under studio conditions but I can’t say I heard any glaring inaccuracies and certainly nothing that impeded my enjoyment of the music-making.

Symphony 39 is one of my favourite Mozart pieces. Here, after a patrician introduction, the first movement allegro is lithe and purposeful. Gardiner shapes II delicately and his players shade the music with matching delicacy; a graceful performance ensues. The minuet has sturdy eloquence and I particularly enjoyed the trio where the clarinets make a pleasing contribution – not least the decoration that Guy Cowley imparts to the melody on its last appearance. The crisp finale is full of zest and brio. The playing of the EBS is distinguished by clean articulation – a virtue throughout this disc – and I relished the very natural energy that the musicians bring to the music.

The Jupiter is equally successful. I can imagine that some listeners might feel that the pace adopted in II is somewhat fleet. I can only say that I welcomed the forward momentum that Gardiner brings to the proceedings and though his tempo is flowing I found no lack of sympathy in the phrasing. The minor key episodes have a nice degree of piquancy. The minuet, which has a completely different character to that of Number 39, is on the swift side but it’s not over-hasty. The performance is capped off with a vibrant, ebullient reading of Mozart’s virtuoso finale. Here, perhaps more than anywhere else on the disc, the listener can really appreciate the clarity with which the performers deliver Mozart’s music.

Any small slips in the playing are a small price to pay beside the vitality of these two Mozart performances. As ever, SDG’s presentation standards are high: the notes by Duncan Druce are succinct and expertly written. I’m delighted that these fine performances have now been made available to the general public.

John Quinn

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools






Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.