MOZART: COSI FAN TUTTE & LA CLEMENZA DI TITO (arr. for woodwinds) - AMADEUS ENSEMBLE, JULIUS RUDEL

COSI Fan Tutte liner notes

Despite having been written within two years of each other, Cosi Fan Tutte and La Clermenza di Tito present sharp contrasts in style: Cosi sparkles with humor, life and joy; Clemenza is imbued with a sense of drama and passion. Stylistically, Cosi bears a close resernblance to the other Mozart-Da Ponte operas (Don Giovanni and Le Nozze di Figaro), while Clemenza hearkens back to Mozart’s ealiest stage works in the opera seria tradition. La Clemenza di Tito is one of Mozart’s last major works and was completed at about the same time as Die Zauberflöte. WNhile it is possi ble that Mozart had begun sketching Clemenza as early as 1789, most of the opera was written in the summer of 1791. It premiered in Prague on September 6, 1791, just four months before Mozart’s death. The transcription recorded here is by Josef Triebensee, who also transcribed Mozart’s other Prague opera, Don Giovanni. Mozart’s orchestration of the opera itself places a great deal of emphasis on the woodwinds, making Clemenza a particularly suitable work for Harmonie arrangement. Perhaps this recording of Triebensee’s transcription will familiarize more music lovers with this lesser-known opera’s exquisite melodies. Johann Nepomuk Wendt, who is credited with Harmonie arrangments of Le Nozze di Figaro and Die Entführung aus dem Serail, probably transcribed Cosi Fan Tutte only shortly after the opera’s 1790 premiere at Vienna’s Burgtheater. Like Mozart’s other dramatic-comedy masterpieces, Cosi is filled with wit, joy, anger, melan choly a panoply of human emotions. The full range of these feelings are aptly portrayed by the wind band.