Search - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Consortium Classicum :: Mozart: Serenades & Divertimenti

Expert, cheerful readings of two Mozart masterpieces

Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 11/01/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The main works on this two-fer of Mozart wind music are the Gran Parita Serenade K. 361 and the Serenade in C minor K. 388. The first is the grandest of Mozart's wind serenades, being scored for 12 or 13 winds (depending on whether hte bass line is given to a contrabass or a double-bass bassoon), and many recordings exist of it. The best are usually with a conductor (Klemperer, Stowkowski, and Furtwangler have made great versions), so it's a high compliment to say that the Consortium Classicum sounds as if a very good conductor is at the helm.



In fact, the group plays alone, like the Orpheus chamber Orchestra. These recordings were made between 1978 and 1985, mostly in Berlin and Hanover. I don't know anything about the Consortium Classicum, and EMI provides no informaiton, but they paly with a light touch, springy rhtyhms, and a sense of playfulness that's refreshing. The same style is applied to K. 375 and K. 388, which are scored for eight instruments (pairs of oboes, clarinets, hors, and bassoons). The rest of the program is made up of four wind diverimenti written earlier in Mozart's career as tafelmusik in Salzburg when he toiled there are a lackey, more of less. These are delightful works scored for pairs of oboes, horns, and bassoons--the clarinet hadn't reached Dalzburg yet.



If you can get this two-fer at a good price, it's quite enjoyable and reasonably well recorded. However, it must be said that K. 361 and K. 388 each exist in more brilliant performances, the most recent being a virtuosic account of the Gran Partita from the winds of the Berlin Phil., also on EMI."