The revival in performances of the early Italian-Austrian symphony at first bypassed Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's father Leopold, and all the pieces on this disc are receiving their first recordings. Leopold was well known as a symphonist on his own before his son came on the scene. Chronological control over his output has not yet been fully achieved, but the music heard here was likely composed in the 1750s and 1760s. As such, it arose during a time when the symphony coexisted with a host of other multi-movement instrumental ...
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The revival in performances of the early Italian-Austrian symphony at first bypassed Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's father Leopold, and all the pieces on this disc are receiving their first recordings. Leopold was well known as a symphonist on his own before his son came on the scene. Chronological control over his output has not yet been fully achieved, but the music heard here was likely composed in the 1750s and 1760s. As such, it arose during a time when the symphony coexisted with a host of other multi-movement instrumental genres, which could vary in terms of both forces and function. One of these "symphonies" was labeled as a "parthia," a serenade-like form possibly related to the Feldparthie and intended to evoke a military or hunting atmosphere. That work, here labeled the Symphony (Partia) in C major, C 4, has a lazy noctural atmosphere and actually seems less characteristic of outdoor music than several of the other symphonies, which have active horn parts. This probably shows only that...
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