Search - Mozart :: The Complete Mozart Divertimentos: Historic First Recorded Edition: CD 3

This third of six CDs containing the complete set of Mozart Divertimentos, the only recording ever made of this repertoire, contains Divertimentos Nos. 11, 9, and 6, and the Divertimento Il Re Pastore. This last is the only recording ever made of an opera reconstructed as a divertimento, accomplished by famed pianist and scholar Robert Levin. The recording also includes equestrian dances for trumpets and flutes, a brilliant six-wind showcase, and the famed "French" Divertimento (No. 11), with Ronald Roseman on oboe. The ensemble is led by violinist Isidore Cohen; liner notes by Robert Levin. Also available as part of a six-CD boxed set, containing the entire Divertimento collection. Like many composers of his time, Mozart often rearranged his works to suit occasions other than those prompting the original compositions. One of his favorite procedures was to create symphonies out of opera overtures and multi-movement serenades. Such transcriptions represented nothing more than a selection of movements in the case of the serenades; but for the opera transcriptions, new music was often required. Mozart?s overtures for his early operas followed the fast-slow-fast model shared by the Italian overture and symphony, but the curtain often went up after the second section of the overture, or even the first. The reworking of such a piece required the elimination of the vocal or choral parts, or the composition of one or more new movements. As Mozart's version of the Il Re Pastore March and Divertimento no longer survives in his own hand, this reconstruction of the aria transcription enables us to make acquaintance with a "new" divertimento by Mozart, in addition to the other unique and original divertimentos also included on this recording. © 2002 Robert Levin