Andrè Schuen Takes a Personal Journey Through the Music of Mozart

The singer celebrates his own longstanding history with the music of Mozart and
with Salzburg in a carefully chosen programme full of intricate interconnections

Schuen’s repertoire features arias and duets from Don Giovanni, Le nozze di Figaro and
Die Zauberflöte, the concert aria Mentre ti lascio and works for voice and piano or mandolin

He is joined by soprano Nikola Hillebrand, pianist Daniel Heide, mandolinist Avi Avital
and the Mozarteumorchester Salzburg and its Chief Conductor Roberto González-Monjas

Mozart comes out on 4 July 2025

“The concept was to create an album people will really enjoy listening to
from beginning to end. It should be like watching a movie…”

Andrè Schuen

“I’ve dreamt of recording a Mozart album since the early days of my career,” says Andrè Schuen. In November 2024, that dream came true, when he performed a selection of the composer’s works in Salzburg, Mozart’s birthplace. With the baritone on stage at the Mozarteum were the Mozarteumorchester and its Chief Conductor Roberto González-Monjas, Schuen’s friend since their student days at the Mozarteum University. Their interpretations, along with others recorded in studio conditions, now appear on Schuen’s latest Deutsche Grammophon album, Mozart. The singer’s carefully curated programme explores his long relationship with Mozart’s music. It includes excerpts from Le nozze di Figaro, Die Zauberflöte and Don Giovanni – with soprano Nikola Hillebrand joining him in a duet from each opera – as well as the concert aria Mentre ti lascio. Schuen performs three works for voice and piano with his longstanding duo partner Daniel Heide, with whom he has already released acclaimed recordings of Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin, Schwanengesang and Winterreise. Finally, Schuen sings “Komm, liebe Zither” with mandolinist and fellow DG artist Avi Avital, who can also be heard with the orchestra in the canzonetta from Don Giovanni.

Mozart will be released on CD and digitally on 4 July 2025. A new production of Don Giovanni, directed by Robert Icke, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle and starring Andrè Schuen in the title role, opens on the same date at the Aix-en-Provence Festival. The duet “Là ci darem la mano” from that opera, featuring Nikola Hillebrand as Zerlina, will be released as a first digital single from the album on 23 May. Schuen’s recording of Abendempfindung with Daniel Heide will follow on 13 June.

In the notes he has written to accompany the album, Andrè Schuen discusses his choice of repertoire. “I didn’t just want to present a list of Mozart’s arias for baritone and bass,” he explains. “Instead I wanted to create interesting links and transitions that would draw the listeners in and establish a dramatic arc for the sequence as a whole.”

The first of the many strands in the album’s web of connections is autobiographical. Figaro was Schuen’s first major operatic role, so the album had to start with two of that character’s arias (“Non più andrai” and “Aprite un po’ quegl’occhi”). Later, he switches role and sings Count Almaviva’s duet with Susanna and “Hai già vinta la causa” in an extended excerpt from Le nozze di Figaro.

There is a similarity in character, meanwhile, between the recitative that introduces “Aprite un po’” and the two numbers that follow – Mentre ti lascio, and the intimate Abendempfindung. The latter, as Daniel Heide points out, has to be sung “very soulfully”, which Schuen amply succeeds in doing.

The excerpts from the masonic-themed opera Die Zauberflöte are introduced by “Die ihr des unermesslichen Weltalls Schöpfer ehrt”, a short cantata intended for masonic use. By contrast, the romantic setting of a garden links the lyrics of Das Traumbild with the duet from Le nozze di Figaro in which Almaviva entreats Susanna to meet him in his mansion’s grounds that evening.

The sweet sound of the mandolin connects the song “Komm, liebe Zither” to the canzonetta “Deh, vieni alla finestra”, the first in the album’s final sequence of three extracts from Don Giovanni. Avi Avital observes that these are two of just three pieces Mozart ever wrote for the instrument, despite its popularity in his day. In the canzonetta, he adds, “it’s a symbol of the purity and sweetness of the young lady Don Giovanni wants to lure to her window!”

There are further links and transitions to be discovered here, but the central thread that runs through the album is of course Andrè Schuen’s voice. “The first time I listened to Andrè we were both students here in Salzburg,” recalls Roberto González-Monjas. “It made me realise what an extraordinary vehicle for emotion the voice is. That was Andrè. He’s unique – what he does transcends technique or intelligence, it’s everything together.”