Serenades - Nimbus Recordings Rediscovered

Description

José-Luis Garcia was music director and conductor of the English Chamber Orchestra from 1973. During his twenty years at the head of the orchestra, he participated in hundreds of recordings, often with the greatest soloists and conductors of the 20th century. This collection of serenades by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was made in December 1982, at the dawn of the digital era, when the entire classical repertoire was being re-recorded. As a performer, Garcia stood out from the dominant 20th-century approach to the interpretation of early Baroque and Classical music and the emerging "authentic" practices. His Mozart is elegant, refined, and performed by an orchestra at the peak of its art. This recording dates from December 1982, a time when record labels favored digital production of the classical repertoire. This period has rightly been called a golden age, as orchestras, conductors, chamber ensembles, and soloists spent much of their time in the studio re-recording the most popular works of the repertoire. Nimbus was therefore open to John Boyden's proposal to record some Mozart serenades with the ECO. The recording was released on vinyl in 1984, but never on CD. In retrospect, it is regrettable that the refined playing of the best British chamber orchestra remained little known at the height of its glory.