Richard Tognetti and the Australian Chamber Orchestra offer up an exclusive track from their new Mozart album.

To celebrate the release of the much-anticipated follow-up to their first all-Mozart recording, the Australian Chamber Orchestra are giving Limelight readers the chance to hear an entire track from the latest instalment: Mozart Violin Concertos Nos 1, 2 and 4, plus the Rondo in C Major and Adagio and E Major, with Richard Tognetti as soloist.

Mozart Violin Concerto No 4: Rondeau – Allegro
From Mozart Violin Concertos vol 2
BIS Records BIS-SACD-1755

The recordings were made last year around the time the ACO performed the lively Fourth Violin Concerto, K218, as part of the Tognetti’s Mozart national tour. “Opera is always bubbling under the surface”, Tognetti said of the piece. Written when Mozart was 19, it is “brighter” than the other four concertos, though all five were completed in the same year, 1775.

He likens the First Concerto, also on the disc, to “a virtuoso Baroque concerto – so many notes!”

The orchestra recorded using gut strings and period wind instruments. “We hope to come as close as possible to the sound-world for which Mozart was composing these pieces”, Tognetti explained.

The second volume of the Mozart series for BIS Records is now available in Australia, months ahead of the rest of the world.