Sunday Classics preview: Memorable Mozart from the no-nonsense younger Colin Davis

The Seraphim LP issue of the c1961 Colin Davis disc of Mozart overtures I keep going on about, as in this July 2012 preview

by Ken

I've spent a lot of time and effort trying to find a path into Mozart's two mature efforts to resurrect the opera seria, Ideomeneo and La Clemenza di Tito. Though the operas themselves remain for me massive expenditures of genius effort which came to not a whole lot, I love both overtures with an abiding passion. What's more, in the case of the Clemenza Overture in particular, when I finally saw the opera in the flesh for the first time, I was surprised by how effective a theatrical overture it was. If only what followed had lived up to that promise.

MOZART: Idomeneo, K. 366: Overture

MOZART: La Clemenza di Tito, K. 621: Overture

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Colin Davis, cond. EMI, recorded c1961

My abiding affection for these ovrtures must relate to the first performances of them I got to know well -- the ones we just heard, which I hope you'll agree are especially robust and attention-grabbing. They are, of course, from the Colin Davis LP of nine Mozart overtures, long available here as a budget-price Seraphim LP, which I keep going on about, including last week's Colin Davis and Magic Flute "double" preview. (I was pleased to see our friend Philip Munger note in his comment on that post that he wore out his copy of that LP.)


THAT MOZART OVERTURES LP HAD THE HAPPY TRAITS
OF WHAT WE MIGHT CALL "EARLY" COLIN DAVIS

These would be a natural sense of musical flow coupled with a preference for having the music play with determination and make its points naturally. As it happens, by then "Sir" Colin Davis did another disc of Mozart overtures nearly 30 years later (assuming I've got the dates about right), for BMG, with that great Mozart orchestra the Staatskapelle Dresden. It's actually a pretty successful record, and especially in the absence of the early EMI one, I can recommend it, especially with its addition of three more overtures (none of them essential, though).

I thought we'd listen to the later performances of the Idomeneo and Clemenza overtures two overtures -- first in the c1961 EMI recording, then in the c1989 BMG remakes, from a CD that may not be not quite as good as the earlier LP (the performances tend -- some more than others -- to be a little harder-driven, to no particularly good expressive effect), but is still pretty lively, and ups the total from 9 to 12 overtures.



MOZART: Idomeneo, K. 366: Overture

MOZART: La Clemenza di Tito, K. 621: Overture

Staatskapelle Dresden, Sir Colin Davis, cond. BMG, recorded c1998

When I assembled the Davis-conducted Magic Flute excerpts we heard in last week's preview, I didn't realize I had the early EMI Overture on CD, and so I went strictly with the complete Magic Flute he recorded in Dresden in 1984, which I described as a pretty good but not great performance. I realized belatedly that I have four of the overtures from the Seraphim LP on the Seraphim CD that contains the William Steinberg-conducted Mozart 40th Symphony from which we heard the Andante a couple of weeks ago.

I thought it might be fun to hear the three recordings of the Magic Flute Overture. In the middle one, the one from the complete Magic Flute which we heard last week, Davis seems to me to be trying to get "fancy" -- he seems prepared to allow more to happen inside those powerful phrases. Unfortunately, this is just the sort of thing he doesn't seem to have been terribly good at, and the performance doesn't seem to me to flow as confidently as the early EMI one. It's all tightened up in the later Dresden recording, but without the sense of space and unforced flow of the early EMI one.

MOZART: The Magic Flute, K. 620: Overture

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Colin Davis, cond. EMI, recorded c1961

Staatskapelle Dresden, Sir Colin Davis, cond. Philips, recorded January 1984

Staatskapelle Dresden, Sir Colin Davis, cond. BMG, recorded c1998

They're all good performances, mind you, but there's no question in my mind which I'm happiest to return to.


IN THIS WEEK'S SUNDAY CLASSICS POST

We're going to hear more of "the early Colin Davis," mostly if not entirely in the form of overture performances. More Mozart, and also some Rossini and Berlioz.

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