Search - George Frideric Handel, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Antal Dorati :: Water Music / Eine Kleine Nachtmusik

Baroque Fireworks! Grand Music By A Great Conductor

Rachel Garret | Beverly Hills | 12/21/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I have said before that Antal Dorati (East European/American conductor of the 50', 60's and 70's) was equally as impressive and perfectionist as Toscanini. But he was never a tyrant. Dorati never failed to get into the mind of the composer and the heart of his work. He was also unafraid of being sentimental. He was comfortable in all the periods of progressive classical music, from the Baroque, to the classical, the Romantic and the jazzy style of Stravinsky. He conducted the Detroit Symphony Orchestra for a lont time, and was active as conductor in the Monte Carlo Ballet. There are now available all the great reissued, digitally mastered recordings of his creed as this century's foremost conductor. In this recording, the fireworks can be heard in every note. This was the type of music Baroque monarchs enjoyed in public celebration, after a victory or for a specific festive ocassion, such as a religious holiday or the king's birthday. It was a time when the royal patrons supported the composer and commissioned his art, a way for them to show off their vanity, enjoy music as leisure with their friends and to express imperial glory, not giving much credit to the composer as an individual and independent artist. It would not be until Mozart and Beethoven that there would be change in the music scene.George Frederic Handel was such a composer. His lush, nearly symphonic works for orchestra "Royal Fireworks Music" and the iconic Baroque masterpiece, "Water Music" are the perfect example of the period and a portrait of Handel as an instrumental composer. There is chamber music and symphonic quality, at times mellow and restrained, at times uplifting and full of florid passages. The Water Music Suite was written for the English monarch who requested Handel compose light, entertaining music for orchestra during a boat trip down the Thames river. It would be like an orchetra playing for the socially elite on a yacht. The famous Hornpipe section, full of majestic brass passages, has become the signature theme for Baroque music. Besides sections for pompous sounding brass, there are elegant string sections, minuets and other dance music that were in vogue. The Music For The Royal Fireworks was commissioned for a German victory and celebrated on that ocassion with a fireworks display. As fireworks filled the evening sky, the tremendous Overture began to play, and it is certainly one of Handel's most poignant pieces for orchestra. The rest is typical of Baroque structure, allegros, andantes, varied with sustained lyricism which is in contrast to the booming, ornamental melodies and counterpoint in the faster paced movements.Mozart's life as a composer was not that different from Handel's. He, too, made a living by composing light music to entertain Vienna's wealthy class. His body of work "Divertimentos", "Serenades" "Marches" "Gran Partitas" and most famous of all, "Eine Kleine Nachtmusic" have proven that he was a master of festive light music, a man not to different than Johan Strauss would be in the late 19th century. The first movement to Eine Klein Nachtmusic "A Little Night Music" is Mozart's most recognizable instrumental work, overused in commercials, movies and radio, popularized by the media that would otherwise ignore classical music. But Eine Kleine has a full richness that is expressed, though not symphonically or maturely, in the Minuet and Rondeau. The waltz-like theme for violins is ancestral to Vienna waltzes. All in all, this is a great recording of this type of music. All good fans of classical music should not be without these works."