This is one of several releases the Naxos label has devoted to the music of Czech composers in late 18th century Vienna, and specifically to that of Leopold Ko?eluch, who succeeded Mozart as court composer and Kapellmeister. Listeners interested in starting with one of these releases might do well to choose this one, which consists mostly of music from the 1770s: here, Ko?eluch did not have to contend with Mozart's shadow and achieved some original structural ideas even if his treatments of harmony and rhythm are often ...
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This is one of several releases the Naxos label has devoted to the music of Czech composers in late 18th century Vienna, and specifically to that of Leopold Ko?eluch, who succeeded Mozart as court composer and Kapellmeister. Listeners interested in starting with one of these releases might do well to choose this one, which consists mostly of music from the 1770s: here, Ko?eluch did not have to contend with Mozart's shadow and achieved some original structural ideas even if his treatments of harmony and rhythm are often bland. Joseph der Menschheit Segen was written, like several of Mozart's late works, for a Masonic audience; it's a little choral-vocal cantata with the novelty of spoken, melodrama-like interludes. There are several strong arias and a solo vocal funeral cantata on the death of empress Maria Theresa, accompanied only by a harpsichord. Given that the work dated from 1781 and that Ko?eluch was a promoter of the new fortepiano, that instrument might have been a better choice, but even as it...
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![Kozeluch: Masonic Cantata [Siegfried Gohritz; Simona Eisinger; Czech Boys Choir Boni Pueri] [Naxos: 8573929]](https://www0.alibris-static.com/cover/o60812u5y5c_t.jpg)
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