Fanfare Reviews
from July/August 1981

Reviews: Mozart

MOZART: Wind Serenades. New York Philomusica Winds. VOX BOX SVBX 5114 (three discs), produced by Robert Johnson, $11.98.

Serenade No. 10 in B-Flat for Thirteen Instruments, K. 361/449a. Serenade No. 11 in E-Flat, K. 375. Serenade No. 12 in C Minor, K. 388. Excerpts from Cosi fan tutte (arr. Wendt). Excerpts from The Marriage of Figaro (arr. Wendt).

Recently I saw a tape of the late Arthur Fiedler in which he reiterated his position that "perfect" examples of smaller genres are as deserving of performance as most of the attempts at the grander types of composition. As examples he cited Strauss' waltzes and Sousa's marches, with both of which he was popularly identified. If he had thought a little longer he might also have mentioned Mozart's six divertimentos for oboes, horns, and bassoons in pairs, written by the teen-aged composer during his time in Salzburg. The curious thing about Mozart's wind music is that, having achieved perfection in the divertimentos, he managed to improve upon that in his three serenades. One reason, I suspect, was that in Vienna Mozart had at his disposal clarinets and basset horns (similar to alto clarinets), whose properties he was able to exploit as no composer before or, probably, since. At any rate, the three wind serenades, remarkably different in character but remarkably similar in the quality of their inspiration, remain the unsurpassed models of wind compositions.

Filling out this album are two suites of excerpts from Mozart's operas arranged by the Bohemian-born wind virtuoso, Johann Nepomuk Wendt. Copyright laws did not exist in those days, and any successful opera was immediately subjected to all manner of plagiarizing and arranging, especially into suites such as these, which were used for the entertainment of the court. Wendt was one of the more prolific of these arrangers, and several of his arrangements have turned up on disc. The arrangements are thoroughly professional and obviously--since there were so many--must have been well received.

The present album is an excellent bargain, with fine, cohesive performances by the conductorless ensemble made up of many of the outstanding free-lance musicians in the New York area: Ronald Roseman, Virginia Brewer, and Randall Wolfgang, oboes; Joseph Rabbai, David Singer, clarinets; Leslie Scott, Paul Gallo, basset horns; Arthur Weisberg, Robert Barris, and Frank Morelli, bassoons; Robert Johnson, William Purvis, David Jolley, and Dennis Lawless, horns; and Alvin Brehm, string bass. The recorded sound is very clean, and extraneous surface noises are minimal. Robert Levin's notes are most informative.

Competition for the serenades comes primarily from Jack Brymer's London Wind Soloists in a five-disc Stereo Treasury set and the Netherlands Wind Ensemble under Edo de Waart on two full-priced Philips singles. I'm also fond of Collegium Aureum's readings--with original instruments--of the "Gran Partita" (K. 361) on Quintessence and the Wendt arrangement of The Marriage of Figaro on German Harmonia Mundi.

George Chien

Copyright © 1981 by Fanfare, Inc. Reprinted by permission from Volume 4, No. 6 (July/August 1981), pages 138-139. This article reviews the LP version of Vox Box 5014.

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