Mozart: Concerto for Flute & Harp, Don Giovanni Overture, and Serenade No. 6 Cologne New Philharmonic Orchestra & Volker Hartung

• 1Overture06:34
• 2I. Allegro10:34
• 3II. Andantino08:06
• 4III. Rondo. Allegro09:33
• 5I. Marcia. Maestoso04:01
• 6II. Minuetto04:05
• 7III. Rondo. Allegretto05:08
• Total Runtime48:01

Info for Mozart: Concerto for Flute & Harp, Don Giovanni Overture, and Serenade No. 6

Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It is based on the legends of Don Juan, a fictional libertine and seducer. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera on 29 October 1787. Da Ponte's libretto was billed, like many of its time, as dramma giocoso, a term that denotes a mixing of serious and comic action. Mozart entered the work into his catalogue as an opera buffa. Although sometimes classified as comic, it blends comedy, melodrama and supernatural elements. A masterwork of the standard operatic repertoire, Don Giovanni is one of the most-performed operas worldwide.It has also proved a fruitful subject for writers and philosophers. The opera was commissioned as a result of the overwhelming success of Mozart's trip to Prague in January and February of 1787. The subject matter may have been chosen in consideration of the long history of Don Juan operas in Prague; the genre of eighteenth-century Don Juan opera originated in Prague. Reports about the last-minute completion of the overture conflict; some say it was completed the day before the premiere, some on the very day. The overture begins with a thundering D minor cadence, followed by a short misterioso sequence which leads into a light-hearted D major allegro.

Concerto for Flute, Harp and Orchestra in C major K 299: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart visited France and its capital, Paris, three times - in 1763-64 as a traveling child prodigy promoted by his father, in 1766 on his return from England and in 1778, as a mature artist, accompanied only by his mother. A further visit, which had been planned in 1783, was never realised. Mozart's visits to France took place under very different circumstances. In 1764 - as an eight-year-old musician and composer child prodigy - he caused a sensation and was even granted access to Versailles, but in 1778, as an accomplished musician he was perceived mainly as a rival by his fellow composers, who were living and working in Paris. Thus his attempts to establish himself as an opera composer in the French musical capital failed miserably, insofar as the musical taste in French society was totally different from what he was used to.

On top of all this his beloved mother, who was unfit in French language and therefore lonely in Paris, died on 3rd July 1778. His attempts at commissions by the court were significantly less successful than expected, yet he gained good experience in the genre of instrumental music while staying there. There- fore a masterpiece was seeing the light of the day and owes its existence to his last visit to Paris: the Concerto for Flute, Harp and Orchestra in C Major KV 299, which Mozart wrote - probably in April 1778 - for the Compte de Guines. The Aristocrat played the flute, and his daughter Marie- Luise-Philippine, who must have been an excellent harpist.

Andreas Haas, flute
Johanna Reithmayer, harp
Cologne New Philharmonic Orchestra
Volker Hartung, conductor

No biography found.

Booklet for Mozart: Concerto for Flute & Harp, Don Giovanni Overture, and Serenade No. 6