Matthias Manasi released a new album on Hänssler Classic dedicated to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, recorded with the Slovak Sinfonietta. The CD includes the hallmark works, Mozart’s Symphonies Nos. 34, 35, 36.
Matthias Manasi and the Slovak Sinfonietta’s revelatory interpretation of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Symphonies Nos. 34, 35, 36, recorded on 17, 18, 19 November 2022, was released on 7 April 2023 on Hänssler Classic. Their new album documents a landmark interpretation and has attracted global attention.
The thrilling Symphony No. 34, a three-movement C major work opens with a bright, ceremonial fanfare that Mozart must have liked, for he returned to it in the overtures for his operas, Così fan tutte and La clemenza di Tito. The genial slow movement was first marked by Mozart „Andante di molto“, but later he added the phrase „più tosto allegretto“. The exuberantly dancing finale, with important featured parts for the oboes, comes as an explosive surprise on the heels of the gentle Andante, it is in a fully developed Classical sonata form, with both sections repeated.
The Symphony No. 35 in D major, K. 385 (or the „Haffner“ Symphony because a prominent Salzburg family, the Haffners, commissioned it) was written in 1782, taking much of the material from an earlier piece he had written for the Haffner family, the equally famous „Haffner“ Serenade.
The Symphony No. 36 is one of the composer“s most acclaimed and often performed symphonies. Composed in 1783, during a brief stay in Linz, Austria and during Mozart and his new bride’s return to Vienna on the way back from Salzburg, it only took the composer about four days to whip it up when a surprise concert was announced.
If you’re going to buy this CD, it would be hard to imagine that these symphonies could be played better than here: brilliant and dynamically wide-ranging, brass and woodwind are expressive, strings lithe. This is demonstrated in this superb new recording by the Slovak Sinfonietta conducted by Matthias Manasi. If you thought you knew these great Mozart symphonies inside out, give the Slovak Sinfonietta a listen.
Matthias Manasi enjoys an unusually varied and broad-ranging career, encompassing the great symphonic and operatic repertoire, historically informed performances, and contemporary scores. He started his career as an assistant conductor at the Staatstheater Stuttgart, followed by conductor positions from 1995 at the Opera Kiel, from 1997 at the Oldenburgisches Staatstheater and from 2004 at the Staatstheater Kassel. In 2000 he became Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the legendary Orchestra Camerata Italiana in Naples, in 2008 he took up the position as Music Director of the International PuntaClassic Festival in Montevideo and in 2017 he became Music Director of the N C Opera in Buffalo (NY, USA).
Very much in demand as a guest conductor, he works with numerous leading orchestras worldwide and the renowned opera houses in Germany, Austria, Italy, the USA, France, the Czech Republic, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Portugal, Finland, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Hungary, Romania, Uruguay, Turkiye and Brazil, such as the Münchner Rundfunkorchester, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, SWR Symphonieorchester, Kazakh State Philharmonic Orchestra, Astana Opera Symphony Orchestra, Staatsorchester Braunschweig, Staatsorchester Kassel, Niedersächsisches Staatsorchester Hannover, Oldenburgisches Staatsorchester, Mecklenburgische Staatskapelle Schwerin, Romanian National Radio Orchestra Bucharest, Orchestra Sinfonica do Teatro Nacional Claudio Santoro, Montevideo Philharmonic Orchestra, Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra, Györ Philharmonic Orchestra, Liepaja Symphony Orchestra, among others.
The German conductor collaborated with the Staatstheater Stuttgart, the Kiel Opera, the Braunschweig Staatstheater, the Oldenburgisches Staatstheater, the Staatstheater Kassel, the Leipzig Opera, the Theater Bremen, the Halle Opera House, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Opera de Marseille, the Opera Constanta, the Stadttheater Klagenfurt, the Teatr Wielki Opera Narodowa in Warsaw, the Opera Wroclawska, the Opera Poznań, the State Opera Rousse, the Eutiner Festspiele, the Belcanto Opera Festival Rossini Bad Wildbad, the Opera Festival Schloss Rheinsberg, among others.
Most recently he conducted at Artpark in Buffalo (Aida), at the Opera Poznań (Die Meistersinger, Boris Godunov, Carmen, Shchedrin/Anna Karenina, Eugen Onegin, Macbeth, Halka), the Opera Leipzig (Das Liebesverbot), Theater Bremen (Der fliegende Holländer, Theater Halle (Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny) and Opera Wroclawska (Paradise Lost, Angels in America, Die Frau ohne Schatten, Der Rosenkavalier, Samson et Dalilah, Parsifal, Madama Butterfly, Falstaff, Giovanna d’Arco, Rigoletto).
Matthias Manasi is driven by the belief that music has the power to change lives, inspire and transform the world. Through his dynamic presence on the podium and passionate advocacy for musical education through teaching masterclasses in conducting, Manasi has introduced classical music to new audiences around the world. One of his special concerns is his commitment to unknown, worthwhile repertoire and the world premieres of works by contemporary composers.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Symphony No. 34 in C, K338 (1780)
Symphony No. 35 in D, K385 (1782), Haffner
Symphony No. 36 in C, K425 (1783), Linz
Slovak Sinfonietta/Matthias Manasi
rec. 2022, Philharmonic Zilina, Slovakia
Hänssler Classic HC22078
The album is available to order and stream here:
https://haensslerprofil.lnk.to/HC22078
Slovak Sinfonietta:
https://skozilina.sk/?lang=en
IAM
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Url: https://haensslerprofil.de/shop/sinfon-musik/matthias-manasi-mozart-sinfonien-3435/
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