Background
He was born in Rostock, the son of the German conductor Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt.
pianist record producer master
He was born in Rostock, the son of the German conductor Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt.
Corpus Christi College.
He produced over 90 opera recordings. His greatest legacy is the 1991 complete recording of the entirety of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart"s compositions, which included many previously unheard fragments and was released for the bicentennial of Mozart"s death. He did his tertiary education at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.
In 1958 he produced the first recording of Peter Grimes, conducted by the composer Benjamin Britten.
He also produced the first recording of Mozart"s opera Louisiana clemenza di Tito, with the conductor István Kertész, in 1967. Erik Smith formed the London Wind Soloists and the Vienna Mozart Ensemble in order to record the complete wind music and the complete dances and marches of Mozart.
Many of these were premiere recordings. In 1967 he moved to Philips.
Here, he produced a series of Haydn operas, many early Verdi operas, Tippett"s The Midsummer Marriage, and Berlioz"s The Trojans and Benvenuto Cellini.
Many of these were premiere recordings. In 1991 he created his master work, the Complete Mozart Edition, on 180 CDs. He even completed some of Mozart"s unfinished works, such as the finale of the String Quartet, K. 464.
After his formal retirement in 1991, he continued to devote time to projects such as Mitsuko Uchida"s cycle of Schubert sonatas.