Mozart's songs usually appear in single-disc collections, for to fill out two discs to make up
Mozart's "complete" songs, as is done on this Naxos release, requires the inclusion of peripheral items such as the mandolin version of Die Zufriedenheit (Was frag ich viel nach Geld und Gut), K. 349; the very early An die Freude, K. 53 (which is not a setting of Schiller's poem); and
Schubert's Luisens Antwort, D. 319, which appears to quote part of
Mozart's Das Lied der Trennung, K. 519, and may represent an early instance of the genre known to country music listeners as the answer song. Yet each of these is interesting in its way. The line of the mandolin-accompanied song, for example, is slightly different from its keyboard-accompanied counterpart, showing
Mozart's sensitivity to even very small musical details. And, as a recorded edition, this set has several things to recommend it. Dividing the music between a soprano and a tenor is helpful, for some of the songs have strong female or male perspectives and were connected with those perspectives in the circumstances of their compositions. The booklet notes give concise accounts of the origins of each song. And best of all, soprano
Ruth Ziesak and tenor
Lothar Odinius shift gears fluently among the various types of songs on display here: Masonic songs, total throwaways, and ambitious works like Das Veilchen, K. 476, that anticipate
Schubert are all given their appropriate weight, and, despite the use of a modern grand, the dimensions of the music are right. The texts are relegated to a .pdf file on the Naxos website, where they appear in German (or French) and English; irritating, but you will end up with larger print than you would with a booklet. A good choice for a complete
Mozart shelf.