The Mozartists, Ian Page – Sturm und Drang, Vol. 4 (2026)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:13:42 minutes | 1,39 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Signum Records

This recording is the fourth in a projected seven-volume series exploring the so-called ‘Sturm und Drang’ movement that swept through music and other art forms between the early 1760s and the late 1780s. In its strictest sense this was an exclusively literary movement which developed in Germany during the 1770s, and which owes its name to the title of a play written in 1776 by Maximilian Klinger. Its general objectives were to frighten and perturb through the use of a wildly subjective and emotional means of expression, and, taking as its model the recently revived and revered plays of Shakespeare, the movement sought to evoke ground-breaking extremes of passion and sentimentality. A leading figure was the young Goethe, whose Sorrows of the Young Werther (1774) anticipated the sombre world-weariness of the next century’s young Romantics, and the movement is generally considered to have reached its peak with Schiller’s play Die Räuber (1780-81).Not surprisingly, the ‘Sturm und Drang’ movement was mirrored in other art forms; the evocation of fear and terror was reflected in the fashion for storms and shipwrecks in paintings of the period by such artists as Joseph Vernet and Philip James de Loutherbourg, while in music there suddenly, and often quite independently, emerged a profusion of intensely dramatic and turbulent minor-key works. It is interesting to observe, though, that the most concentrated period of musical ‘Sturm und Drang’ actually predated the literary movement, suggesting less a conscious and deliberate ‘movement’ than a latent emotional mood. Indeed, it was perhaps inevitable and natural that there should at some point be a reaction to the superficial charm and gentility of the rococo style of the mid-eighteenth century.

This fourth volume in The Mozartists’ ‘Sturm und Drang’ series features feverishly intense symphonies by Kraus and Haydn, opera arias by Mozart and Traetta, and the climactic scene from Jiří Benda’s melodrama Medea, which Mozart excitedly hailed as the future of opera.

Tracklist:

1-1. The Mozartists & Ian Page – Kraus: Symphony in C Minor, VB 142: I. Larghetto – Allegro (09:47)
1-2. The Mozartists & Ian Page – Kraus: Symphony in C Minor, VB 142: II. Andante (05:33)
1-3. The Mozartists & Ian Page – Kraus: Symphony in C Minor, VB 142: III. Finale. Allegro assai (06:20)
1-4. The Mozartists & Ian Page – Traetta: Antigona, Act II: Ombra cara, amorosa…Io rosto sempre a piangere (05:53)
1-5. The Mozartists & Ian Page – Mozart: La finta giardiniera, K. 196, Act II: No. 13 Aria Arminda: Vorrei punirti indegno (04:04)
1-6. The Mozartists & Ian Page – Benda: Scene from Medea (09:49)
1-7. The Mozartists & Ian Page – Haydn: Symphony No. 45 in F-Sharp Minor, Hob.I:45 ‘Farewell’: I. Allegro assai (07:20)
1-8. The Mozartists & Ian Page – Haydn: Symphony No. 45 in F-Sharp Minor, Hob.I:45 ‘Farewell’: II. Adagio (13:35)
1-9. The Mozartists & Ian Page – Haydn: Symphony No. 45 in F-Sharp Minor, Hob.I:45 ‘Farewell’: III. Menuet e trio: Allegretto (04:02)
1-10. The Mozartists & Ian Page – Haydn: Symphony No. 45 in F-Sharp Minor, Hob.I:45 ‘Farewell’: IV. Finale. Presto – Adagio (07:13)

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