Huffing and puffing through Mozart
The Gran Partita for 13 winds (or 12 winds plus double-bass substituting for contrabassoon) is one of Mozart’s masterpieces-among-masterpieces. There are some wonderful recent recordings of the work; my two personal favorites are a recording by Octophoros (top Belgian and other players on period instruments) and another by alumni from the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont. Interestingly, these two were conducted by Bart Kuijken (Octophoros) and Marcel Moyse (Marlboro), both eminent players of the flute, a wind instrument that Mozart chose to omit from the Gran Partita.
Another very interesting recording surfaced recently (link here; the Gran Partita starts at 1 hour 1 minute). This is a 1945 recording of George Szell conducting members of the NY Philharmonic at a performance given at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Most entertaining are the program notes, which include this gem:
NOTE
Playing a woodwind instrument for long periods is a strain on the lungs of the player. In symphonic works the woodwinds speak alternately, and rarely for long stretches of time. In wind serenades, however, the instruments speak continually. There was no harm in this for the players in Mozart’s time, because music of the divertimento and serenade type was not performed attacca, but in pauses determined by the nature of the festivities of which the music was a part, for instance, the sequence of the courses offered in the collation. As the Museum’s cafeteria does not yet excel in rococo refreshments, we beg the indulgence of the audience for intervals longer than usual between the movements of the Serenade.
