In The Mood For Mozart: Smorg’s 10 Favorite Mozart Arias
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1740 – 1779) was a marvelously versatile composer. That he had a great musical gift for melody is well established, but what really made him great was his ability to capture drama and emotions in written notes with great fidelity in a very deceptively simple manner. With the current surge in popularity of his operatic music, my list of favorite songs by him runneth over. Here are five of his arias I love best so far.
(I have a thing for arias with instrumental obbligato. These are songs where an instrument has a solo part that is both independent and complimentary to the singing voice, turning the aria into a duet of 2 musical instrument. Four of the arias listed here fit the bill).
1. Ch’io mi scordi di te?/ Non temer amato bene (K.505)
Sample: www.mozart-weltweit.de/23d02.wma (Mozart-Tower….. unknown singer)
Written in 1786, first as an insertion aria into the opera Idomeneo (with violin obbligato), then revised and presented as a parting gift to one of his great friends and favorite soprano, Nancy Storace, where the virtuoso piano obbligato replaces the original violin solo (Mozart himself accompanied Storace from the piano at her farewell performance). This 8 minutes long duet between the voice and the piano is one of the loveliest chunk of music in classical repertoire. Unfortunately, a really good rendition of it is hard to come by. Not only does the music requires 2 great soloists, but they have to be communicative with each other in order to make this long duet work (when a singer treats this song as a solo showpiece and fails to react to the piano obbligato, this song can degrade into a good cure for the insomniacs).
The rendition by Diana Damrau on her Musikalische Akademie CDis one of the best, and so is the recording on Véronique Gens’ Mozart Arias CD. Based on the little snippet of it that I’ve heard, anyone who managed to tape Vesselina Kasarova’s rendition of it at a 2005 concert in Vienna (at the Musikverein with Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Concentus Musicus Wien), however, is sitting on a golden disc…
2. Mitridate, ré di Ponto: Già dagli occhi il velo è tolto
Sample: www.mozart-weltweit.de/29c12.mp3 (Mozart-Tower…. Anne Murray?)
Probably the most remarkable aria from the rarely staged opera by the 14 yrs old Mozart. Farnace, the eldest son of King Mitridate of Ponto (in modern day Turkey), is one of opera seria’s finest prodigal son who plots against his dad and younger brother while coveting his own stepmother. After spending most of the opera spewing his venom in one rage aria after another, this song of penitent couldn’t come soon enough. Being a role that was written for an alto castrato whose strength evidently lies in the lower part of his voice, his music sits quite awkwardly for today’s singers. I dislike most countertenors’ attempts at this role since they tend not to sound masculine enough… The very low music really suits a deep coloratura mezzo soprano more (but there aren’t many of them around either). The long breath required by the long legato lines of it really drives home how magnificent singing specimens those big lunged castrati must have been, also.
My favorite version is captured in the live recording of the opera from the 1997 Salzburg Summer Festival, where Vesselina Kasarova sings Farnace. Other great recordings are on David Daniels’ Senti Amor CD and on Kasarova’s Mozart Arias CD.
3. Il re pastore: L’amero, saro costante
Sample: www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMBgg2-wPMg (Gerard Schwarz conducting June Anderson & Joshua Bell)
This duet is between the soprano voice and a solo violin. Aminta (a castrato role now sung by a soprano), the shepherd boy realizes that he is actually the rightful king and bursts into this joyful song about how he wouldn’t be unworthy of his beloved Elisa anymore. As remarkable as the vocal writing for this song is, the flute is at least its equal. There is something unearthly about how it glides over the orchestra as if imitating a divine hand placing the crown on the head of the unlikely new royalty.
My current favorite rendition is by the young Elisabeth Schwarzkopf on the EMI label.
4. La clemenza di Tito: Ecco il punto Non più di fiori
Sample: www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDmgo8ZczEU (Catherine Nagelstad) or www.mozart-weltweit.de/36a05.wma (Mozart-Tower)
This splendid rondo is a testy piece to sing near the end of the opera. Vitellia, one of the nastiest female lead in all of opera finally grows a conscience… which is such a departure from her natural tendency that it takes a good 8 minutes (sometimes longer, depending on the tempo) for her to talk herself into performing her first unselfish act of the entire opera. She still doesn’t love Sesto as much as he loves her, but she wouldn’t have his death be on her conscience either…. so what’s the girl to do but to confess to the man she tried to have Sesto assassinate that she was the actual mastermind of the coup d’etat.
This aria is famous for its fascinating basset-horn obbligato, which pretty much stands in for the voice of Vitellia’s conscience. It is so lucky that Mozart had heard his pal, the virtuoso clarinetist Anton Stadler, played around with the basset-horn before (Stadler invented the instrument, and it went extinct with him. The basset-clarinets and basset-horns we have today are modern reconstructions). The instrument’s extended low notes have mesmerizingly haunting dark quality that cannot be reproduced when substituted by a regular A or Bb clarinet).
My favorite rendition is by (who else?) Vesselina Kasarova on her Mozart Arias CD. Equally compelling take is done by Dorothea Röschmann captured live on the DVD of the opera from Salzburg Festival 2003. It is as though the drama-loving Mozart was determined to write the song that is impossible for anyone to sing beautifully (since ‘beautiful’ really isn’t what Vitellia is supposed to be projecting at this point of the story).
5. Per questa bella mano (K.612)
Sample: www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hKiyRsrXow and www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAoKZ8UgmqQ (Maté; Fülep, Sandor Török & Katalin Sarkady)
Aye, another obbligato rondo aria (starts with a slow session, and end with a fast virtuoso one). But this is a rare showpiece that features the lowest instrument of their category, the bass voice and the double-bass (strings). It is a musical parody of a very charmingly obese nature (the way the double-bass rumbles on, you just know the dude is a potential gastric bypass candidate). The music is so descriptive about why this dude won’t get the girl that it would even sound funny just to be sung by a thin and tall basso. I mean, the poor dude is constantly whacked in the head as he gets more profuse in his declaration of love. You just know it’s all gonna end badly for him.
My favorite rendition is by Thomas Quasthoff in his Mozart Arias CD.
Voila . I hope you’ve discovered a bit more about Mozart’s music and perhaps found a few more songs you enjoy from this essay. The people who can sing these songs well really command my respect. Mozart wrote some of the most technically demanding vocal music ever written, and it takes superb singing musicians and dramatists with great command of their voice in order to do them justice. The next time you stop by at the music store, check out the classical section.
