The Mozartean Players

The Mozartean Players, founded in 1979, is one of the oldest continuously active early-music organizations in America. It is also one of the most distinguished, as measured by all criteria: critical response, the breadth and volume of its performing history, the distinction of the auspices that have welcomed it, the influence it has borne on other musicians, and the quality of its recorded legacy.

• Critical Response: The Mozartean Players has received a spectacular response worldwide for its live performances and recordings. A selection of more than one hundred excerpts were circulated when the group commemorated its 15th anniversary-see: Mozartean Player Reviews


• Performing History: The group has performed under the auspices of Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, The Metropolitan Museum in New York City (where it offered multi-concert seasons for five years), the Lufthansa Festival of London, the Tage alter Musik Festival of Regensburg, and scores of distinguished series in twenty-five states and other international auspices.


• Artistic Influence: In its initial decade as a protean ensemble shifting from orchestral to varied chamber formats, the group reinterpreted the classical masterworks in period style in a long series of pathbreaking and widely publicized concerts in major halls in New York City. More recently the group has performed and recorded primarily as a trio, presenting early romantic works (Schubert and Mendelssohn) as well as Classical. These performances have served as models for many young artists at home and abroad.


• Recordings: For the Arabesque label in the 1980s, the group recorded eight Haydn trios and four Mozart piano concertos (with Steven Lubin directing from the keyboard). Two additional piano-concerto recordings from this era have just appeared on the Classical Soundings label: CS1001. For Harmonia Mundi USA, the group recorded the complete trios of Mozart and Schubert, and the Mozart piano quartets (with guest violist David Miller).

The current configuration of the group as a piano trio, unchanged since 1987, is comprised of Steven Lubin, fortepiano, Stanley Ritchie, violin, and Myron Lutzke, cello. The group's repertoire spans the era from Haydn through Schumann, the period during which the piano, starting as the delicate, five-octave, wooden-frame instrument of the classical period, changed gradually into the larger, early-romantic piano. A large proportion of the group's touring has involved Mr. Lubin's readily transportable five-octave Walter fortepiano replica, performing trios of Haydn, Mozart and early Beethoven. By special arrangement, the group also tours with its romantic Graf piano replica (both replicas by R.J. Regier), offering works by the later Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn and Schumann. The stringed instruments are accordingly in period disposition.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES
STEVEN LUBIN is one of the world's premier fortepianists, sustaining a busy international career as a performer and recording artist. His solo appearances on both fortepiano and modern piano include engagements at Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival and Great Performers' Series, the Ravinia Festival, the Kennedy Center, Vienna's Musikverein, Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, London's Barbican Center and South Bank Festival, France's Festival de la Roque d'Antheron, Holland's Utrecht Festival, Finland's Espoo Festival, and many other auspices. His numerous concerto engagements include appearances with the National Symphony, the St. Paul and Los Angeles Chamber Orchestras, the Odessa Philharmonic, and the Mozarteum Orchestra of Salzburg.

Mr. Lubin has served as soloist and conductor of The Mozartean Players Classical Orchestra in a five-year cycle of concerts at New York's Metropolitan Museum and Alice Tully Hall, and in a series of Mozart-concerto recordings. His Decca recording of the five Beethoven concertos with Christopher Hogwood and the Academy of Ancient Music was chosen as a Recording of the Year by The New York Times, Stereo Review and Gramophone, and was cited as the finest recorded Beethoven cycle available by the Penguin Guide. Mr. Lubin has also recorded many other works by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin and Brahms.

STANLEY RITCHIE, an internationally recognized authority on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century performance practice, joined The Mozartean Players in 1987. He is also a founding member of the summer music festival and academy Aston Magna, and a member of the Duo Geminiani with keyboardist Elisabeth Wright. As a soloist he has appeared at festivals such as Mostly Mozart, Tanglewood, Ravinia, and Lufthansa (in London). He has performed with many outstanding musicians, including Christopher Hogwood, Roger Norrington, and John Eliot Gardiner, and has appeared as soloist and director of many ensembles, such as the Academy of Ancient Music, the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and the Handel and Haydn Society Orchestra.

He has performed on modern violin in numerous tours and recordings as first violinist of the Philadelphia String Quartet, and concertmaster of the New York City Opera and Musica Aeterna Orchestras. Currently on the faculty of the Early Music Institute and director of the Bloomington Baroque at Indiana University's School of Music, Mr. Ritchie has taught master classes at the Royal Copenhagen Conservatory, Yale University, and the Juilliard School. His discography includes releases for the Harmonia Mundi (USA and France), Decca, EMI, Nonesuch, and Dorian labels.

MYRON LUTZKE is one of the foremost American players of eighteenth-century cello. Equally active as a performer on both modern and period instruments, he is a member of the St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble, Smithsonian Chamber Players, The Esterhazy Machine, the Aulos Ensemble and the Bach Ensemble, and serves as principal cellist of the Orchestra of St. Luke's and the American Classical Orchestra. He has also held the principal position with the Handel & Haydn Society Orchestra, Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, Classical Band and Drottningholm Festival Orchestra in Sweden.

Mr. Lutzke tours extensively as a recitalist and chamber player throughout North America, Europe, and Australia; and at the Tanglewood, Ravinia, Caramoor, Aston Magna, Ottawa and Mostly Mozart festivals. As a continuo player he has performed in the Metropolitan Opera production of Handel's Julius Caesar and in Peter Sellars' television production of the Mozart/Da Ponte operas, which were recorded in Vienna and broadcast over PBS. A member of the Early Music faculty of the Mannes College of Music, where he teaches baroque 'cello and performance practice, Mr. Lutzke can be heard in numerous recordings on more than half a dozen major labels.