10/10 ClassicsTodayFrance.com; Empfohlen, Klassik.com
5 Diapasons: "Une réalisation musicale de premier ordre." Diapason; "Tremendously exciting performances." American Record Guide; "Kurz: mustergültig; absolutes Referenzklasseniveau, so und nicht anders sollte diese Musik klingen." Klassik.com; "A very distinguished collection which avoids any hint of the routine." MusicWeb International; “67 vibrant minutes of some of the most splendid music ever composed for the theater.” ClassicsToday.com&&&
Although celebrated as the father of German Romantic opera, Carl Maria von Weber is today generally known for one opera alone: Der Freischütz. Most of his other works for the stage – including the incidental music for several plays – are nowadays rarely performed. But their overtures have survived the test of time and are popular fillers at orchestral concerts, imbued as they are with Weber's particular mix of Romantic drama and lyricism and Classical lightness of touch.
Striking is also the inimitable, colourful instrumentation, which is given free reins in these scores for librettos and plays that are set in China and Arabia, and among Spanish gypsies and knights in 12th-century France. The present disc includes ten of these gems, from the overture to Weber’s first surviving opera Peter Schmoll und seine Nachbarn – composed at the age of fifteen – to that of Oberon, written in London for Covent Garden less than two months before his death from tuberculosis, aged 39.
The team of Jean-Jacques Kantorow and the Tapiola Sinfonietta have recorded numerous discs for BIS, by composers as diverse as Saint-Saëns, Mozart, Shostakovich and Rautavaara. Acclaimed releases have also been dedicated to the music of Weber, most recently his symphonies.
