A Monthly Allotment of Mozart on CD

Mozart remains the prime occupation of classical compact disc recording, with 20 releases of his music per month having become commonplace. It is noteworthy, too, how certain works, not necessarily the most familiar, are released in clusters, most recently the so-called “Gran Partita,” the Serenade in B-flat, K. 361, that spectacularly scored--for 12 winds and double-bass--compendium of wind technique and sonority, of which three recordings arrive simultaneously.

Two are played on period instruments: By the Belgian ensemble somewhat alarmingly called Octophoros and conducted by Barthold Kuijken (Accent 68642), and by members of Germany’s Collegium Aureum (Angel/EMI 47818). The modern instrument version is by winds of the New York-based Orpheus Chamber Orchestra (Deutsche Grammophon 423 061).

The Belgian and American players are comparable in their exalted virtuosity while differing in their approaches to the score, Octophoros being crisp, quick, intensely rhythmical, while Orpheus leans toward the rounded phrases and longer-drawn lines of Romantic interpretation. Each version is, in its way, impressive--and preferable to the Collegium Aureum edition which in this company sounds labored and strait-laced.

The Quintet in E-flat for piano and winds, K. 452, another current favorite--with no fewer than ten different CD versions listed in the current Schwann Catalog--is handsomely presented by pianist Jos van Immerseel and a quartet from Octophoros (Accent 58538). This is an illuminating display of period instrument sonority and balance in its contrasting of the pingy, metallic 18th-Century piano tone and the dark, woody timbres of the old oboe, clarinet and bassoon which these artists exploit to maximum effect in their lively, loving performance coupled, as usual, with Beethoven’s Opus 16, in the same key and for the same combination of instruments.

The identical combination, but on modern instruments, is to be had from pianist Alfred Brendel and a wind quartet led by oboist Heinz Holliger (Philips 420 182). Brendel is unfortunately in one of his precious moods, playing as if caricaturing Classical style: With constricted dynamic range and short, poked-out phrases--reminiscent for all the world of one of Chico Marx’s one-finger exercises, but not nearly as funny.

Continuing their traversal of the Mozart concertos in period stylings, pianist Malcolm Bilson and the English Baroque Soloists under John Eliot Gardiner make their first foray into the big trumpets-and-drums repertory by pairing the Concertos in D minor, K. 466, and C, K. 467 maintaining the high standards achieved in more lightly-scored fare. K. 466 broods impressively and the slow movement of K. 467 is restored to freshness in an overall reading of affectionate, spirited simplicity (Deutsche Grammophon Archiv 419 609).

Both minor-key Concertos, the D-minor and C-minor, K. 491, are heard in period interpretations radically different from those of Bilson and Gardiner. Here (on Philips 420 823), the soloist is American keyboardist John Gibbons with Frans Bruggen conducting his Netherlands-based Orchestra of the 18th Century. Where Gardiner maintains flexible phrasing, textural clarity and light ensemble, without trivializing the music’s inherent drama, Bruggen seems intent on showing that period instruments can contribute to Mozart as densely textured and inflexible as we got from the aged Otto Klemperer.

The value of Bruggen’s thesis escapes this listener--and hardly dovetails with Gibbons’ agile, rhythmically free playing.

An attractive compromise between these two styles is found in a live recording by the San Francisco Midsummer Mozart Festival Orchestra. Conductor George Cleve leads a lively, polished, admirably detailed performance of the Concerto in C, K. 415, in support of the stylish, fluent pianism of Jeremy Menuhin (Yehudi’s son). This CD--offering only 38 minutes of playing time--also includes an energetic, well-played “Lucio Silla” overture from Cleve and his charges (Bainbridge/Colossus 6273).

What to say about Vladimir Horowitz’s first-ever Mozart concerto recording, the A-major Concerto, K. 488, with the La Scala Orchestra under Carlo Maria Giulini (Deutsche Grammophon 423 287)? Little, other than to report that Horowitz’s playing is so reverential as to be barely noticeable and that Giulini and company bump along from phrase to phrase as if sight-reading. Horowitz, in the accompanying Sonata in B-flat, K. 333, shows that he can also skim surfaces when completely on his own.