Zubin Mehta - Mozart: Serenade, K. 361 (1995/2019)
WEB FLAC (tracks) - 199 MB | Tracks: 13 | 49:23 min
Style: Classical | Label: Sony Classical
This is playing of distinction. With all 13 players being of the highest quality and Mehta at his sympathetic best, everything unfolds impressively, with a sense of joy in the music-making. A big work, this, written for the kind of wind ensemble that became popular during the 1780s at the Austrian imperial court and its aristocratic imitators. In fact, the usual combination was of pairs of oboes, clarinets, horns and bassoons, but here Mozart adds two more horns, a pair of bassett horns and a double-bass; the effect is thus even more massive, although his mastery of texture is such that it never feels overblown and a contemporary described this piece as "herrlich und gross, trefflich und her", which the insert-note here translates as "glorious and grand, excellent and sublime".