Mozart : Violin Concertos 1-5 - Sinfonia Concertante - Claudio Abbado, Giuliano Carmignola, Orchestra Mozart

Mozart : Violin Concertos 1-5 - Sinfonia Concertante

Claudio Abbado, Giuliano Carmignola
Orchestra Mozart

BBC music magazine : Martin Cotton

Performance:*****

Sound: *****

Giuliano Carmignola is much more associated with Baroque repertoire than with Classical. It's good to be able to report that the qualities that made his Locatelli and Vivaldi so gripping are all here as well. There's the complete technical fluidity, at the service of a lively musical imagination, and he's backed up by some superbly shaped orchestral playing under Abbado, whose engagement with historically informed performance is now well-established. Right from the opening tutti of the First Concerto, it's clear that he's lavishing all his powers of balance, phrasing and charm on the music. And neither conductor nor soloist is a slouch: the finale of this concerto sets off like a rocket, and stays tightly rhythmic throughout. Fine though the first two concertos are, Mozart found himself in the Third – and you can hear Carmignola and Abbado responding with a sense of adventure to a new world opening up. Clearly both have spent much time re-examining the music – phrasing is enterprising, sometimes not what you might expect, but always convincing. And much as I have praised Julia Fischer's performances, these are even finer – more whole, more profound, more inevitable – and quite as well recorded. Although the slow movements might seem fast in purely metronomic terms, there's always space for the expressive point. That's especially true in the slow movement of the Sinfonia Concertante – a true andante, rather than an indulgent adagio – where flexibility of phrasing, rubato and vibrato come together to let us glimpse the perfection that is Mozart.

The Guardian, Andrew Clements

Friday July 18 2008

Claudio Abbado's ever greater immersion in Mozart has been one of the musical glories of recent years. If everything Abbado conducts seems to aspire to the naturalness and intimacy of chamber music, that quality is nowhere more obvious than in his approach to Mozart. This pair of releases features the conductor with an ensemble that was founded four years ago in Bologna almost, it seems, as an attempt to create an Italian counterpart to the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, with which Abbado has worked so regularly over the past decade. There's one significant difference between the two groups, though; where the Mahler CO plays exclusively on modern instruments, the Orchestra Mozart appears to use either modern or period instruments as required. These two sets illustrate that flexibility. The symphonies, taken from concerts in Italy in 2005 and 2006, appear to be played on modern instruments at standard concert pitch (A = 440Hz), while the recordings of the violin concertos with Giuliano Carmignola, on the other hand, sound as if they use period instruments tuned at the slightly lower A = 430Hz. What remains constant between the two collections, though, is the almost miraculous conducting, with its exuberant, lively tempi, perfectly balanced lighter-than-air textures, and exquisite attention to the smallest details of phrasing and articulation. The sense of the players listening as intently to each other as they do to following Abbado's directions is obvious in every bar. The symphonies are an unalloyed joy - with gloriously natural phrasing and a palpable delight in the music's deftness and the fertility of its invention. Here the brisk tempi are no problem at all - quite the opposite when that energy and joie de vivre can be channelled to such exhilarating effect, in the Jupiter Symphony above all. But there are a few moments in the violin concertos, and especially in the Sinfonia Concertante (in which Carmignola is joined by viola player Danusha Waskiewicz), when the music could benefit from a little more room to breathe, though Abbado and his soloists do show that the slow movement of the Sinfonia doesn't need to be taken as an indulgent adagio to weave its magical spell.

telegraph.co.uk : Richard Wigmore

In close, conspiratorial collusion with Abbado and his lithe period-instrument orchestra, Giuliano Carmignola brings a sense of impish adventure to these familiar concertos. Like Andrew Manze on his Harmonia Mundi CD of Nos 3-5, the Italian violinist treats them as surrogate operas, relishing the teenaged composer's quicksilver contrasts and irreverent delight in the unexpected. Some listeners may initially be fazed by some pretty smart tempos, especially in the Arcadian slow movements of Nos 3 and 5. But the music always has space to breathe and "speak". Phrasing is marvellously fresh and inventive, with witty, sometimes downright cheeky, touches of ornamentation. Routine-looking passagework darts and frolics with coltish exuberance. Inspired by Abbado's hyper-sensitive accompaniments, Carmignola and his viola accomplice form a creative, symbiotic partnership in the darkly majestic Sinfonia Concertante. In the tragic andante, the players' mingled purity, suppleness and expressive urgency can make most other performances seem self-indulgent by comparison.

Classics Today : David Hurwitz

This is without question the finest set of Mozart violin concertos on period instruments. Claudio Abbado's set of symphonies with his not-terribly-wonderful period-instrument group may have been vile, but he's still an excellent concerto accompanist. The smaller forces and subsidiary role conceal the players' weaknesses, and aside from some fussy staccatos in the opening tutti of Concerto No. 5, Abbado doesn't micro-manage the music to the point of absurdity. Indeed, he's aptly lyrical and graceful, and he doesn't suck the juice out of such episodes as the "Turkish" interlude in the Fifth concerto's finale. It's very gratifying to hear him operating in such good form. None of this would matter if the soloist were not excellent, but Giuliano Carmignola is magnificent. These concertos provide no serious technical challenges to modern players (on whatever instrument), but cultivating a genuine singing tone is always a challenge, and Carmignola has one. It's a gift. Just listen to the middle movement of the Third concerto, or indeed to any of the slow movements here. This is far superior in sheer timbre to, say, Andrew Manze (HM, who's quite good), despite the very close microphone placement. The performance of the Sinfonia concertante is also excellent, with violist Danusha Waskiewicz a fully equal participant with Carmignola. Once again, it's the slow movement that's especially outstanding: deeply felt, movingly sung, but never heavy. So if you want these pieces on period instruments, this set's the best choice, at least for now.

CD 01 Concerto for Violin & Orchestra No.1 in B Flat Major K.207 Concerto for Violin & Orchestra No.2 in D Major K.211 Concerto for Violin & Orchestra No.3 in G Major K.216 CD 02 Concerto for Violin and Orchestra No.4 in D major K.218 Concerto for Violin and Orchestra No.5 in D major K.219 Sinfonia Concertante in E flat major K.364

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