On being rejected by Aloysia Weber – oldest sister of Constanze, whom he would later marry – Mozart is said to have sat at the Webers’ keyboard and played a song inviting her to kiss his arse. Spoiler alert: that’s a hidden track at the end of this disc of irresistibly good Mozart singing from rising French star Sabine Devieilhe, with Raphaël Pichon and his chamber orchestra, Pygmalion.The programme celebrates Mozart in love, from the youth writing variations on popular songs about besotted shepherdesses to the master-composing of the Et incarnatus of the Mass in C minor to fit his wife’s beguiling, supple voice.
Expressive and incisive, Devieilhe is in command of everything, most impressively the showpieces written for star soprano Aloysia and her younger sister Josepha, the first Queen of the Night; Devieilhe’s account of the famously stratospheric Die Hölle Rache is exceptional. Even amid a recent glut of classy Mozart vocal recordings, this stands out.
