Písně současníků W. A. Mozarta - CD

This album explores the musical world of 18th-century Prague and the journey between Prague and Vienna through songs performed by Martina Janková and Barbara Maria Willi. Its central repertoire comes from Czech song composition at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, with works by Václav Jan Tomášek, Leopold Koželuh, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Jan Josef Rösler, Joseph Haydn, Jan Václav Voříšek and Jan Václav Kalivoda. The programme reflects the close musical connections between Prague and Vienna, as well as the fact that Czech composers primarily set German and Italian texts to music. It also evokes the flourishing of German songs for domestic music-making, the associated publishing activity and the rapid spread of the piano in the 1780s. Leopold Koželuh was one of Vienna’s most successful song composers, while Rösler worked in Prague to preserve Mozart’s legacy after the composer’s death. Tomášek and Rösler shared a refined literary taste and an impeccable choice of texts. Martina Janková’s lively, fresh and delicate soprano voice suits the Mozartian repertoire, while Barbara Maria Willi plays a 1797 fortepiano by Franz Joseph Baumeister, the only surviving instrument of its kind.