Description:
Throughout his career, Christopher Hogwood has managed to synthesize the insights of the music scholar and the practical experience of the performer with unusually fruitful results. He has been one of the most influential conductors in extending the precepts of "historically informed performance" beyond a specialized constituency to a mainstream audience, above all in the music of Mozart, as in his acclaimed account of the complete symphonies. This recording of the Mass in C Minor represents one of Hogwood's finest interpretations. It's a sterling example of the conductor's ability to scrub away the crusty
Throughout his career, Christopher Hogwood has managed to synthesize the insights of the music scholar and the practical experience of the performer with unusually fruitful results. He has been one of the most influential conductors in extending the precepts of "historically informed performance" beyond a specialized constituency to a mainstream audience, above all in the music of Mozart, as in his acclaimed account of the complete symphonies. This recording of the Mass in C Minor represents one of Hogwood's finest interpretations. It's a sterling example of the conductor's ability to scrub away the crusty patina of received traditions so that we can hear Mozart with fresh ears. The use of period instruments and boy trebles in the chorus allows Hogwood to blend voices and orchestra with remarkable transparency, whether in the brooding Kyrie or the joyful punctuation of the Gloria. Hogwood's fluid sense of Mozartian line shows him thinking not in measures but in wonderfully long-spun phrases--notice the fleet grace of the Laudamus te--that he colors and shades with supple variety. Yet he also brings out the architectural grandeur of Mozart's exuberant polyphony and brass girding. Richard Maunder's edition fleshes out the unfinished score's torso by reconstructing the Sanctus and Osanna and filling out the orchestration in the Credo movements. The quartet of soloists is excellently balanced, with particularly fine contributions from the two sopranos. --Thomas May
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Manufacturer: Decca
Release date: 20 July 1999
EAN: 0028942552821 UPC: 028942552821
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