The Ruins of Athens, incidental music, Op. 113: Overture
Slavonic Dance for orchestra No. 8 in G minor B. 83/8 (Op. 46/8)
Violin Concerto, for violin, strings & continuo in G minor ("L'estate"), RV 315, Op. 8/2 (The Four Seasons; "Il cimento" No. 2): Presto, tempo impetuoso d'estate
Three discs of Chamber Orchestra of Europe performances devoted to work with conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt may seem excessive until one considers that their long association goes a long way toward explaining why the orchestra has a 25th anniversary to celebrate in the first place. The youthful players of the COE were ideal partners for the radical Austrian conductor, who, it now seems clear, exerted his greatest influence as a teacher and shaper of the musicians who encountered him. The virtues of Harnoncourt's conducting ...
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Three discs of Chamber Orchestra of Europe performances devoted to work with conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt may seem excessive until one considers that their long association goes a long way toward explaining why the orchestra has a 25th anniversary to celebrate in the first place. The youthful players of the COE were ideal partners for the radical Austrian conductor, who, it now seems clear, exerted his greatest influence as a teacher and shaper of the musicians who encountered him. The virtues of Harnoncourt's conducting -- the fresh approaches to every work, the transparency of texture, the interpretive risk-taking -- are all here in this set of Mozart's final symphonies; the issues -- brittleness, a certain ideological quality -- are absent. Harnoncourt remains a conductor who is going to inspire passionate disagreement, and here's some: several of his Andante movements are very brisk walks indeed, and taking the Allegretto of the Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550, at the blazing speed Harnoncourt...
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