Mozarts Fantasia in F minor (K. 608)

I'm looking for a good, and hopefully more recent, recording of this fantastic piece originally written for the mechanical organ. I have an ancient performace by John A. Davis Jr. on vinyl, part of a four record collection called 'A Treasury of Organ Music.' If someone knows of a good CD with K. 608, and, perhaps the few other pieces Mozart composed for the organ, please tell me. I'm sure one of the better 20th century organists made this piece part of his or her

It's on Organ Fireworks 5 (Hyperion) played by Christopher Herrick, although it's not coupled with other Mozart works. I actually quite like the disk, but it's a mixed bag. Certainly the organ wouldn't be to everyone's taste...

I'm surprised there are so few recordings of this piece. It certainly appears on recital programmes very often, and I would consider it to be pretty much standard repertoire (although not for me, as I find it very difficult )

I'd recommend this collection.
http://store.yahoo.com/gothic/mozandorjoan.html

David

It's difficult indeed, because it was written for a machine and not for 10 fingers and 2 feet.

It's more often recorded for piano four-hands.

Tom Wood

Dame Gillian Weir has included this piece in her recitals quite often in the past year, as well as in ones coming up this year. I heard her play it on a Beckerath organ last year and it was simply a stunning performance.

She has also recorded it recently on the Phelps organ at Hexham Abbey in England, see her website at http://gillianweir.com There are links to various places to buy the CD, as well as upcoming performances where you could possilbly hear a live performance.

Steve Thomas

Thanks. This looks like the best bet. I'm glad to see one of my other favorite pieces - Bach's 3rd partita - is on this disc. I know the great French organist and composer Marcel Dupré recorded K. 608 fairly late in his life (late 1950s - early 1960s), along with a few other Mozart pieces, but it's been difficult finding them.

Try 'Mozart on the Organ' with Hans Fagius on the Marcussen Organ of Lindevang Church in Copenhagen. BIS,also on MHS.

Of course 'mechanical organ' isn't much like real organ. There is not a single piece by Mozart written for the organ - that we know of, at least -, even though he was supposedly an excellent organist.

It can be also played on a piano with a pedal, an instrument that Mozart owned and wrote the Piano Cto in d minor K 466 for. Richard Maunder reconstructed such a piano and played some of the Mozart works on it. (There is no commercial recording, though, just privately made tapes.)

I suppose the reason Mozart wrote these pieces for the mechanical organ was to entertain some bourgeois clients, who probably payed a decent sum to be able to hear works from their local genius any time they chose. There are, of course, several nice organ concerctos written for an actual organist, but I wouldn't call any of them virtuoso works. The organ had pretty much reached its nadir in the late 18th century, perhaps accounting for Mozart's miniscule output for the instrument.

There are several one-movement 'organ sonatas' by Mozart, which are actually one-movement concertos with orchestra. They are definitely worth listening to. I used to have a reel-to-reel tape with Biggs as soloist and an orchestra conducted by Rozsnyai.

The three works for 'mechanical organ' were a specific commission from the owner of a gallery of figures (wax or gypsum), representing famous people and various scenes. One of such people was the Imperial Field Marshall Laudon, famous for defeating the Turks and rescuing Belgrad from the Turkish rule, who died in 1790. Mozart's work - K 594, not K 608 (but K 608 was written for the same gallery) - was played regularly every hour or so next to Laudon's figure, serving as funeral music for the brave marshall. The following web site is quite reasonably accurate on the topic:
http://www.home.zonnet.nl/vspickelen/Mozartfiles/ Mozart.htm

The visitors to the gallery or mausoleum didn't care all that much whose music was played: the field marshall was obviously a much more important figure than one of hundreds of composers active in Viennea at that time. The paid to see the war hero, not to listen to Mozart's music. And if they did, it wasn't 'any time they choose', but whenever the music was 'programmed' (by means of a clock) to be played. One really has to keep in mind that although Mozart wasn't as forgotten or misunderstood by his contemporaries as many popular melodramatic biographies have it, he was nonetheless only one of several composers active in Vienna and his competitors - whose names became more widely known again only recently - were regarded as just as good or better composer than Mozart.