Who doesn’t love a good Concertante, part symphony, part multi-voiced concerto? The best-known piece here is the Mozart, of possibly doubtful authenticity; scholars believe he composed the wind parts and someone else did the orchestration. There is no original score. It’s a delightful work, with a lilting, melodic adagio, and the third movement, a theme and variations that gives each wind a solo or duet turn. Variation No. 9 for oboe and horn is a real pip. If it isn’t by Mozart, it sure can pass–it is a charm-filled piece of salon music, handsomely played. (The only competition I’ve heard is on Sony and it’s turgid.)
Franz Danzi, a Mozart contemporary, is represented here by two works. The first is a reworking of his wind quintet with an extra clarinet. It has a grand first movement, a brief, palate-cleansing adagio, and a fine Rondo finale. The other is an altogether more substantial work, scored for flute, clarinet, and orchestra. The opening movement has a lovely interplay among the soloists, and is classically proper, albeit with a humorous bent. The almost all wind second movement (there are pizzicato strings) allows the flute to giggle, and the jollity of the Polonaise finale is as delightfully unexpected as it is delicious. It longs to be encored immediately.
François Devienne is best known as a composer of flute music despite having written a dozen operas. His Sinfonia concertante exploits flute, oboe, horn, and bassoon. The first movement, gallant yet entertaining, holds off for a couple of minutes until the solo winds pop in, slowly but surely, in deep quartet mode. The 80-second adagio is like an intro to an opera-seria recitative that instead becomes an oboe riff that opens the mellow third movement, a theme-and-variations. First is for flute; second toys with bassoon; horn/flute/bassoon are next, and so forth. Hardly life-changing, but elegant, enlightened music.
The work by Pleyel is formal 18th century, with emphasis on the whole rather than the soloists; the soloists’ first entry gives the impression, false, that there will be concerto-like stand-alones. Rather than the work seeming stodgy, it charms and keeps you guessing, until the hunt-like Presto takes off with a smile.
The playing could not be better, even the outlandish horn riffs in the Mozart, and the ensemble work assumes that this is a band of brothers. Not quite an earthshaking release, it nonetheless fulfills every need one has for Classical-era wind music and it’s beautifully recorded.
