RECORDING MOZART SYMPHONIES 40 + 41

To start with the end of the story, these recordings made it to No 1 for these works on the most popular music streaming sites. They managed to top a catalogue of more than 500 recordings of these symphonies made over the last century by all the most famous conductors.  Those who listen to them understand the difference immediately.

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 Why make another recording of these symphonies? More recordings have been made of them that any other works in the repertoire. For me,  the music Mozart wrote - what I could see on paper - was not was I heard in any recording. Some came close, such as those of Sir Charles Mackerras, but still some of the music was missing.

The symphonies are tricky to bring fully to life because there is so much going on in the score - this was Mozart's 'High Viennese' style where the influence of Bach and Handel's counterpoint are strong. So, the challenge for me was to reveal all of Mozart's writing by finely controlling every instrument. The only way I could do this was by making detailed micro-instructions in the score and having the instruments rehearse in their own groups for weeks beforehand. I then proceeded to ad several microphones to each instrument or group during the recording process to ensure that the mix revealed the full scores.