Customer Reviews

Mozart: Serenade No. 10 "Gran Partita"; Divertimenti K.213 & K.270

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

It's hard to find any Sol Schoenbach recordings anymore. All of the ensembles are great!! I highly recommend this cd to any wind player. Many highly excellent musicians, all on one cd. It is a very relaxing cd, also.

a bland recording, not one of essential classics' essential CDs...most of the movements are also truncated--missing repeats, variations, etc...and if you like your recordings to have a spacey sound, this recording sounds like they were in a little box...save your money

I was really disappointed by this lousy performance of the Gran Partita. Sure they get all the notes, but there's no feeling of magic. The Academy of St. Martin in the Fields gives this composition a much better treatment. I also plan to check out the famous Mackerras version in the future. As far as the two Divertimentos for winds, they are minor works, but the recordings of them are better quality. The Fantasia is not for winds and, pardon the expression, a wind arrangement takes the "wind" out of it. Try a recording of it on organ or piano or the mechanical organ it was meant for. The same goes for the last piece on this album.

If you want to quickly sort out the best performances/ recordings for this masterpiece, all one needs to do is compare the deeply moving third movement of the Gran Partita (adagio) for this CD versus Marriner's or Mackerras's recordings. The intrepretation of that movement on this CD seems to totally miss the gentle, soaring sentiment Mozart wanted to produce with his beloved woodwinds. This is the moving composition early in the movie Amadeus which the eldery Salieri so eloquently describes its sublimitity and seeming transcendence. Instead in this recording here, the pace and character seem more like a march than a meditative movement touching upon heavenly inspirations. There is usually a reason for a low priced CD's (but not always like in the case of Naxos) and this one fits that model. The Marriner ASMF recording is listed as a Gramophone "recommended recording" for the Serenade K361 and is one that captures well the sublime emotion as does the performance under Sir Charles Mackerras. These are both much better choices and do the work its justice.

I found the first selection here to be simply gorgeous. Mozart's music can be simply sublime sometimes. To me, the notes in the score are magical in and of themselves. Having said that, I have not experienced the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields recording of this; so I cannot judge this recording against that one. However, I have no regrets over saving a few dollars and being enraptured by the good music-making done on this disc.