Discovering Music

This BBC Music mag cover disk resembles an edition of the Radio 3 programme Discovering Music, in that it features nearly half an hour of detailed explanation of the music together with examples. The music in question is the familiar Eine Kleine Nachtmusik by Mozart and violinist / conductor Andrew Manze gives extremely interesting explanations into how this is more than an easy flowing melodic makeweight. To my knowledge, this is the only time the cover mag has taken this approach. I guess the Eine Kleine is just the right sort of length for this treatment. The disk does also include Manze and the English Concert playing two other short Mozart pieces, Divertimento in F, K138, and Adagio in E for violin and orchestra, K 261. Further examples of the way that Mozart's music just seems to proceed in such an effortless perfectly apposite progression. Manze's Nachtmusik examples help shed light on the other works too, however and show the genius behind the apparent ease of composition. Good to have a complete version of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik too rather than an extract which I had elsewhere.