This is the first project in a seven-volume series exploring the ‘Sturm und Drang’ movement, which swept through all art forms in the between the early 1760s and 1780s. The purpose of this movement were to frighten and perturb through the use of wild and subjective emotional means of expression.
This series of ‘Sturm und Drang’ recordings incorporates iconic compositions by Mozart, Gluck and, above all, Joseph Haydn, but it also includes largely forgotten or neglected works by less familiar names. The music featured on this disc was all composed in the 1760s. It includes ballet and opera as well as symphonies, but is drawn together by the hallmarks of the remarkably visceral and dynamic style of music that we now call ‘Sturm und Drang’.
All downloads include booklets.
“Well they seize on the contrasts there, don’t they? The ensemble really does make an impact.” – BBC Radio 3 Record Review
“The Sturm und Drang movement is all about high drama, something Ian Page and the Mozartists, playing with scintillating edginess, offer in abundance here…The evocative orchestral final scene from Gluck’s Don Juan serves as an arresting opener” – The Sunday Times
★★★★ Performance ★★★★ Recording “[Don Juan] played with fantastic attack and vigour…A genuinely fascinating start to what will doubtless be an illuminating, if emotionally harrowing series” – BBC Music Magazine
“This is a splendid collection that whets the appetite for further exploration of this intriguing repertoire” – Opera Magazine
“Page’s projects with The Mozartists are distinguished not only by exemplary standards of performance but also by the ambition and imagination that underpin them…[Skerath] is suitably dramatic in first recordings of arias from operas by Jommelli and Traetta…What horns (Gavin Edwards and Nick Benz), and with what freedom they are encouraged to make their mark!…The playing throughout is excellent and the programme is as deeply satisfying as the project’s entire conception” – Gramophone
