Sandor Vegh - Mozart: Serenaden & Divertimenti (10 CD) (1991) CD-Rip

There is an unfailingly genial quality to Mozart's serenades and divertimentos, and these ten works make three very agreeable discs: they are stylishly played and the sound from various locations, including the Salzburg Mozarteum, is reasonably homogeneous as well as offering some blend of refinement and richness. For my own taste, the Vienna Mozart Ensemble is slightly too large-sounding a body to do complete justice to the more delicate writing of Eine kleine Nachtmusik, say in the trio of the minuet third movement, but the playing itself is beyond reproach (though there is a G, the violins' lowest note, that hangs on mysteriously after the final chord of this movement).
The Mirring Quartet plays the three Divertimentos, K136-8, that date from 1772. Though they are sometimes heard in orchestral form I must say that these performances please me still more for their greater intimacy. This ensemble's playing is expert and attractive, while the tone of their leader, Peter Mirring, has a slight extra sweetness, too, that suits this fresh and innocent music. As a whole the players bring the right expressive weight to slow movements, perhaps especially the Andante of the F major Divertimento, K138, missing no detail yet not overloading the music or allowing momentum to sag. It is good also to hear finales and other quick music alert, yet not (as so often happens today) bustled along.
Like Eine kleine Nachtmusik, the orchestral divertimentos sometimes sound a little big for the nature of the music. But otherwise they are in safe hands with the Salzburg Camerata Academica under Sandor Vegh and the Berlin Chamber Orchestra under Peter Wohlert, and there is a tasteful use of modern instruments employed. The Mozarteum acoustic (to be heard in K113, K131 and K247) is on the reverberant side, but not excessively so. Vegh and his orchestra play this music affectionately, but give us its necessary high spirits too. The wind playing is beautifully done, not least in slow movements such as that of the guileless K113, which also has some finely blended clarinet and horn playing. The first trio in the first minuet of K131, played by four horns alone, is a delight; these players reappear to no less effect in Minuet II and at the start of the finale. The strings, too, deserve praise for such playing as they give us in the nobly thoughtful Adagio of the same work. Here, again, the conductor refuses to hurry allegros, e.g. that of the finale in K247 or the first movement in K251, so that the music has time to speak while still retaining bounce and elan. Of course the Serenata notturna played by the Berlin orchestra is a bigger piece, and comes complete with timpani and a maestoso marking for its marchlike first movement. This is attractively directed by Peter Wohlert, and if the recording (in an unnamed location) is a bit thick in the bass, the music can take this although the effect is a little heavy in the minuet and finale.