Mozart instantly sprang to mind when Martin Fröst began planning his debut album as a conductor. The Swedish clarinetist’s love for the man and his work took hold in childhood and has burned bright for over 40 years since. “Mozart’s music is my life,” he tells Apple Music Classical. Fröst’s choice of what to record landed on some of the greatest works of the composer’s final years. The final repertoire selection—together with the album’s Ecstasy & Abyss subtitle—was shaped by the contradiction between the exquisite beauty and profound emotional insights of music written by a composer who was often deep below the poverty line. “It’s hard to put into words what Mozart was going through in the late 1780s and early 1790s,” observes Martin Fröst. “But after his father died in 1787, you feel he was no longer trying to please anyone. Even though he was going through a financial crisis, you can’t hear that in the music.” His album’s first disc includes two joyful works: the concert aria Ch’io mi scordi di te? and the Piano Concerto No. 25 in C Major, both of which were included by Mozart in a concert given at Leipzig in 1789 to raise much-needed income. But first comes a richly detailed, intensely musical interpretation of the “Jupiter” Symphony, supported by virtuoso playing from the Swedish Chamber Orchestra. “You need a balance between surface details, phrasing, and form,” says Fröst. “But I love to work with details in Mozart music: articulation, breathing, and colors in the sound. You have to listen for all these subtle things that you can’t find in the score. Mozart sometimes leaves things to our own musicality.” Read on as Martin Fröst takes us through each work on Mozart: Ecstasy & Abyss [LEIPZIG, 1789]. Symphony No. 41, “Jupiter” “Mozart wrote his three last symphonies, Nos. 39, 40, and 41, within less than six weeks in the summer of 1788. His infant daughter Theresia died just days after he completed Symphony No. 39. He had no money and complained that he could not compose—he was in a crisis! And then this music just came. I think that’s one of the reasons why his music is so personal and, at the same time, so universal. He had this divine voice that spoke to the people about the people. And there’s great beauty in it. “For me, this music is opera. And opera is about breathing. If the orchestra starts to breathe and brings these natural physical movements to the music, then you can back off and leave them to it. Because I’m a wind player, I wanted to do away with the feeling of the bar lines and make the ‘Jupiter’ more alive. If you compare this performance to other recordings, I hope it will sound very fresh.” Ch’io mi scordi di te? “This concert aria for soprano, piano, and orchestra really suits Elin Rombo’s voice. We’ve known each other for a long time, and she was a very natural choice. When we first heard her sing it, I was very convinced. It’s about the warmth in the sound and the way she uses the lyrics. Mozart wrote it for Nancy Storace, an English soprano who was a star of the Italian opera company in Vienna. She and Mozart probably gave its first performance during her farewell concert at the Theater am Kärntnertor in February 1787. He revived it two years later for a performance he gave in Leipzig with his friend Josepha Duschek, part of a tour that also took him to Dresden and Berlin. Mozart was so desperately short of money, and the tour was supposed to help him raise funds at the box office and land commissions from the music-loving King of Prussia.” Piano Concerto No. 25 “I’ve worked with the pianist Lucas Debargue for many years. We first played together when we recorded Messiaen’s Quatuor pour la fin du temps. He’s such a very unique player in his sense of freedom, which you can hear in the way he plays this Piano Concerto. It’s the freest piano-playing I’ve ever heard. He’s like a singer who does all of these ornaments yet at the same time you understand everything completely. “Mozart included the Piano Concerto in C Major, which dates from the end of 1786, in his Leipzig concert in May 1789 with Josepha Duschek. He also played his Piano Concerto in B flat in the same program. The concert, which was arranged at short notice, was poorly attended and left Mozart almost no profit!”