Search - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Helmut Koch, Berlin Chamber Orchestra :: Mozart: Bastien und Bastienne

Early Mozart well performed

Barbara Miller | Bellevue, WA United States | 12/29/2000

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I am a fan of both Mozart and Peter Schreier, and the relatively low purchase price of this disc clinched my decision to buy it. Overall I am quite pleased with it. "Bastien und Bastienne" is an innocuously fluffy Singspiel with music written by Mozart at the age of twelve. It is charming, rather than profound, and the musical pieces, while short and for the most part simple, do illuminate the psychological state of the characters who sing them, and are always pleasant. (Still, if you're new to Mozart's operas and looking for one to start with, you should look to the later ones rather than this one to hear the full measure of his genius.) The performers have spared none of their artistry in bringing these characters to life, with the result that the musical numbers are fine examples of Mozartean performance style and the spoken dialogue moves along with energy and enough expression to amuse even those of us listeners who do not speak German. To help us out, the CD liner includes the text of the Singspiel with a parallel English translation (uncharacteristic of many Berlin Classics recordings).I really enjoy listening to Peter Schreier and Theo Adam in this work. Adele Stolte's voice is regrettably a bit too stiff and straight to suit me; I can imagine the warmth that a lyric soprano like Elly Ameling or Lucia Popp would have brought to this role. I have not heard other recordings of this work, so I cannot compare this to them, but certainly the price of this disc and the overall high standards of performance make it attractive.As a bonus, the disc includes two Mozart concert arias performed by Peter Schreier. These arias have Italian texts, and were recorded in 1968, three years after the 1965 recording date for "Bastien und Bastienne." Since my high regard for Peter Schreier's artistry predisposes me to love anything he does, I tried to be as objective as possible in listening to these arias for review purposes. While his lyrical sound, intonation, and legato line are fine, I have to say that I would like these arias to "sound more Italian" (both in diction and phrasing) than they do. (I don't have this problem with his later performances of Mozart's Italian operas, for example the 1977 "Don Giovanni" under Karl Bohm.) Performances of these arias by other artists on the larger, more expensive collections of Mozart concert arias may well be better (although these are by no means bad), so I wouldn't buy this disc just for the concert arias, unless price really is the object."