There has been no shortage of fine
Mozart recordings coming from Britain, but the best policy is probably to relax and enjoy it. This is a superb program of familiar chamber pieces plus one novelty, a single-movement, incompletely orchestrated Adagio for English horn and strings, K. 580a. That richly lyrical piece is worth the price of the album by itself, and the strong performances of the standard works by Britain's young
Ensemble 360 are the best kind of bonus. The lively, charismatic flute playing of Guy Esched in the Flute Quartet in D major, K. 285, is a special standout, as is the level of detail achieved by the entire ensemble in the Quintet for piano and winds in E flat major, K. 452. This is one of the finest recordings of that work on the market -- sample the final couple of minutes of the Allegretto finale, a sterling example of the endlessly inventive and joyful genius of
Mozart, to experience the enthusiastic flavor of the group's playing, and the slight and delightful evolution in shading in the marvelous recombinations of instruments in this movement. The Clarinet Quintet closing the album is gentle rather than retrospectively and agonizingly "autumnal" as so many others are -- the players realize that, although
Mozart did have feelings of impending death, it is probably wrong to read them into too much of his music. The liner notes are accessible and well suited to anyone encountering this music for the first time, and the fabulous engineering of the recording should be mentioned in closing -- it makes everything transparent, and it offers an experience very close to being there.