Mozart: Violin Concertos 3–5 Benjamin Schmid & Musica Vitae

• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 - 1791): Concerto for Violin and Orchestra No. 3 in G major, K. 216:
• 1Mozart: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra No. 3 in G major, K. 216 - I - Allegro08:50
• 2Mozart: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra No. 3 in G major, K. 216 - II - Adagio06:44
• 3Mozart: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra No. 3 in G major, K. 216 - III - Rondeau. Allegro06:17
• Concerto for Violin and Orchestra No. 4 in D major, K. 218:
• 4Mozart: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra No. 4 in D major, K. 218 - I - Allegro08:14
• 5Mozart: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra No. 4 in D major, K. 218 - II - Andante cantabile06:22
• 6Mozart: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra No. 4 in D major, K. 218 - III - Rondeau. Andante grazioso07:04
• Concerto for Violin and Orchestra No. 5 in A major, K. 219:
• 7Mozart: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra No. 5 in A major, K. 219 - I - Allegro aperto09:22
• 8Mozart: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra No. 5 in A major, K. 219 - II - Adagio08:16
• 9Mozart: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra No. 5 in A major, K. 219 - III - Rondeau. Tempo di Menuetto08:37
• Total Runtime01:09:46

Info for Mozart: Violin Concertos 3–5

The Salzburg violinist Benjamin Schmid has been studying the violin works of W.A. Mozart for more than four decades now. He was initially influenced by the Mozarteum professors of the time, Sándor Végh and Nikolaus Harnoncourt, and received numerous awards as his style of interpretation became increasingly personalised.

His first CD recording in 1990 of Mozart's Violin Concertos Nos. 1 and 2 with the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg under Hans Graf was also hailed by critics as a discovery. 32 years and hundreds of performances later, Benjamin Schmid now completes his recordings of the violin concertos with the Swedish orchestra Musica Vitae, whose musical director he has been since last year, and describes his path with the following words: "As a violinist who grew up in Vienna and Salzburg, Mozart was ultimately always the most important composer for me; I already defined this preference at primary school age, and the interest grew with the discovery of the complete works of this probably at least most gifted of all composers. For me, the key to interpreting Mozart lies in the duality of singing and tonal speech; singing as immediate emotion and phrasing and articulation as formative grammar."

"Since 2020, 55-year-old Austrian violinist Benjamin Schmid has been artistic director of the Orchestra Musica Vitae in the southern Swedish city of Växjö. He has now recorded violin concertos by Mozart with the orchestra. Right from the first movement of the 3rd concerto, the bright, vibrant colors and vital momentum of the orchestral playing are striking. Schmid matches this with radiant and flexible music-making. The above applies to all the fast movements of the three concertos, although it must be emphasized that the tempi are by no means excessive. The spirited performing, in which Mozart’s creative ideas are realized with great imagination, is very characteristic. The slow movements are sensitively shaped, with an inner liveliness based on the finest differentiations in articulation and, again, bright colors." (Remy Franck, pizzicato.lu)

Benjamin Schmid, violin, conductor
Orchestra Musica Vitae

Benjamin Schmid
Since his debut at the Salzburg Festival as solo partner of Sir Yehudi Menuhin in 1986, Benjamin Schmid has developed into one of the most important violinists of our time with his worldwide, constantly intensive concert activity in about 3000 live concerts.

The victory of the Carl Flesch Competition in London in 1992, where he was also awarded the Mozart, the Beethoven and the Audience Prize, brought the international breakthrough for the violinist Benjamin Schmid, who comes from Vienna, in addition to other competition prizes.

Since then he has appeared on the world's most important stages with renowned orchestras such as the Vienna Philharmonic, the Philharmonia Orchestra London, the Petersburg Philharmonic, the Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, the Leipzig Gewandthaus Orchestra and the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich. His soloistic quality, the extraordinary range of his repertoire - in addition to all the standard works, he also plays, for example, the violin concertos by Wolf Ferrari, Gulda, Korngold, Elgar, Weill, Dutilleux or Weinberg - and especially his improvisational skills in jazz make him a violinist with an incomparable profile.

Benjamin Schmid's more than 50 CDs have been honored, in some cases several times, with the German Record Prize (as the only violinist in the categories classical and jazz), the Echo Classic Prize, Grammophone Editor's Choice or the Strad Selection. In addition to recordings of the standard repertoire of violin concertos by Mozart, Beethoven, Bruch, Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky, Wieniawski or Brahms, his award-winning new discoveries of the violin concertos by Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Ermanno Wolf Ferrari, Mieczyslaw Weinberg, Friedrich Gulda (violin and cello concerto) , György Ligeti, Nicolo Paganini - Kreisler and Max Reger deserve special mention.

On the occasion of his 50th birthday OehmsClassics released "Benjamin Schmid Complete OehmsClassics Recordings" (20 CD Box).

Benjamin Schmid has appeared several times with the Vienna Philharmonic in TV concerts broadcast worldwide: with Seiji Ozawa at the Salzburg Festival or with Valery Gergiev at the Schönbrunn Summer Night Concert; both have been released on CD and DVD by Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft and OehmsClassics. Several documentary films about Benjamin Schmid, broadcast worldwide, complete the violinist's exceptional standing.

In Salzburg, Austria, where he lives with his wife, the pianist Ariane Haering, and their four children, Benjamin Schmid dedicates himself as a professor and mentor to his students at the Mozarteum University, where he was awarded the "International Prize for Art and Culture", among other prizes. He also gives masterclasses worldwide, was professor and guest professor at the Hochschule der Künste Bern/CH and serves as jury chairman of the International Mozart Competition Salzburg.

As Artistic Director of the ClassixKempten music festival in Germany, he is responsible for a critically and audience acclaimed concert week in September that aims to present first-rate as well as rare chamber music and jazz concerts.

Beginning with the 2020/21 season, Benjamin Schmid has been appointed Artistic Director of the chamber orchestra Musica Vitae in Växjö, Sweden, where he is also planning a program profiled by classical and jazz influences, while also planning first CD recordings of new works written for Benjamin Schmid.

Finally, Benjamin Schmid is also artistic director of the orchestra Salzburger Orchester Solisten (SAOS) , with whom music of the 20th century is in the foreground.

Benjamin Schmid is portrayed as one of the most important violinists in the book "The Great Violinists of the 20th Century," by Jean-Michel Molkou (published by Buchet-Chastel, 2014).

He performs on the "ex Viotti 1718" Stradivarius violin made available to him by the Austrian National Bank, as well as on a modern violin made in 2015 by Wiltrud Fauler.

This album contains no booklet.