#119 The Smell of Dominance

Figaro, pretending he's obliging and ready to please, shows his prevalence here. It's an accepted challenge: Oh, you would like to dance (read: sleep with my wife)? My pleasure! But be prepared, my dear, because I'm the cat and you're the mouse in this game.

D'Arcangelo is a great Figaro (and Leporello). He's combining satire and menace into an amusing mix. All for fun!

Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Work: The Marriage of Figaro, "Se vuol ballare, signor Contino"
Recording: Ildebrando D'Arcangelo, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Nikolaus Harnoncourt

#103 The Smell of Contemplation

Quiet, rest. This piece of music wants nothing more. It's a funeral music but it's not sad music. It's healing, reuniting. Touching.

This 1974 recording is from The Otto Klemperer Memorial Concert in London. Kubelík keeps very slow tempo, so you can feel how the music is interlaced. The intervals in the beginning are dazing.

Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Work: Masonic Funeral Music
Recording: New Philharmonia Orchestra, Rafael Kubelík

#96 The Smell of Knowing Better

Do you smell it? Leporello's predominance, his advantage? How safe he feels he is, how confident? And the music is totally clear: it's a game, it's a twiddling: randy cat and half-dead mouse.

The period instruments of EBS give the aria rough edges; it's wild, not so rounded. Donna Elvira should have known better.

Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Work: Don Giovanni, "Madamina, il catalogo è questo"
Recording: Ildebrando D'Arcangelo, The English Baroque Soloists, John Eliot Gardiner

#94 The Smell of Fug

This is smell, literally. I smell fug, age, marasmus. It breathes with leather-bags: asthmatic, noisy panting. And in the same time, it goes high, very high. Or actually, it does not go: it's already there.

This recording is, above all, a recording by Monteverdi Choir. Utterly clear, pregnant sound, clean pronunciation. Together with unrivaled EBS, it's a masterpiece no one can match.

Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Work: Requiem, I. Introitus: Requiem
Recording: Barbara Bonney, Anne Sofie von Otter, Hans Peter Blochwitz, Willard White, Monteverdi Choir, English Baroque Soloists, John Eliot Gardiner

#78 The Smell of Unconcern

The clarinet is like an unconcerned man sitting on a park bench. He's looking around but is not really interested in anything. And if something–anything–happens, he can successfully pretend he's not there.

Nothing jazzy in Goodman's tone; tempo is slower than I would expected. Some phrasing is maybe not typical but that can be only my imagination.

Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Work: Clarinet Concerto, III. Rondo: Allegro
Recording: Benny Goodman, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Charles Munch

#58 The Smell of Purity

Subtle, high-hearted, noble tone. Happy melody. I smell spring coming, gentle, green, embracive.

There's just one hard tone there (1'38''). It's a stamp of a child. Do you feel how indignant the child is? "Do it one more time, better, I want it!" And we do it–for spring.

Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Work: Sonata for Piano No 15, K. 545
Recording: Sviatoslav Richter

#44 The Smell of Fragility

Sure, Papageno's aria sounds joyful. But it's so fragile, so subtle, one is afraid to breathe. The music is fleet-footed: hopsasa!

Gerald Finley is pretty convincing as Papageno. Here's a land of good, nothing wrong can happen here. And we just swallow the bait. It really was ein Netz.

Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Work: The Magic Flute, "Der Vogelfänger bin ich ja"
Recording: Gerald Finley, The English Baroque Soloists, John Eliot Gardiner