Mozart: Serenades & Divertimenti for Wind Instruments
Mozart Edition vol. 3
Wind Soloists of The Chamber Company of Europe, Alexander Schneider; Henk de Graaf, clarinet; various Dutch wind players
Brilliant Classics 99716 (7 CDs, approx. 6 hours 10 min.)
There’s something quietly perverse about assembling all of Mozart’s wind music in one massive box—like serving seven courses of sorbet.
Brilliant Classics has done exactly this, gathering the serenades, divertimenti, notturni, and assorted; wind trifles into a thorough survey that tests one’s appetite for the genre. The rewards are considerable, if unevenly distributed across these seven discs. The jewel here—no question—is the Gran Partita, K.
361, recorded by the Chamber Orchestra of Europe’s wind soloists in 1985 at Forde Abbey. This is the work that supposedly moved Salieri to tears in Amadeus, and while Shaffer’s screenplay took liberties with history, the music’s sublimity needs no dramatic license. The COE players bring a lean, classical elegance to this thirteen-instrument marvel.
You can almost hear the rosin dust settling on the strings.
Listen to how the oboes and clarinets interweave in the “Romanze”—there’s a transparency of texture, a refusal to sentimentalize, that feels absolutely right. The famous "Adagio" doesn’t wallow; it floats. Alexander Schneider’s influence (he died in 1993, so this must have been among his final projects) shows in the ensemble’s chamber-music intimacy.
Each voice remains distinct even in the most complex passages of the variations movement. The recording, licensed from ASV, captures the slightly dry acoustic of what I assume was a stone-walled English abbey with flattering clarity. But then we descend—or perhaps ascend?—into the realm of Gebrauchsmusik, music for use rather than contemplation.
The five divertimenti K. 213, 240, 252, 253, and 270, composed in Salzburg between 1775 and 1777, were designed to accompany aristocratic dining and garden parties. Mozart wasn’t aiming for posterity; he was fulfilling commissions.
The Dutch wind players (two oboes, two bassoons, two horns) handle these works with professional competence. Martin van de Merwe and Jos Buurman, the horn players, deserve particular mention for their secure intonation in the treacherous upper register passages of K. 253.
Yet there’s no escaping a certain predictability in these scores. The menuets follow formulaic patterns; the "finale"s rush by in serviceable haste. K.
253’s theme and variations offers the most substantial music on disc five, but even here Mozart seems to be working efficiently rather than inspired. One senses the young composer’s impatience with the genre’s limitations. The real curiosity lies in those six divertimenti K.
439b (listed in Köchel’s catalog as Anhang 229), scored for two clarinets and bassoon—or more accurately, two basset horns and bassoon. These chamber works inhabit a peculiar sonic world. Henk de Graaf and Jan Jansen on clarinets, with Johan Steinmann’s bassoon, create an almost reedy intimacy that can charm or cloy depending on one’s tolerance for this particular timbre.
The sixth divertimento’s incorporation of themes from Le nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni—”Voi che sapete,” “Non più andrai,” “Là ci darem la mano”—provides welcome melodic relief. Hearing “Vedrai, carino” reimagined for winds offers a glimpse of Mozart’s own practice of arranging operatic hits for domestic consumption. The authenticity of these works remains contested.
Some scholars doubt Mozart’s authorship entirely; others attribute them to his later years. The music itself offers few clues—it’s well-crafted, occasionally inventive, but lacking the harmonic daring or melodic distinction we associate with mature Mozart. Still, these pieces have their advocates, and — well — this recording presents them in the best possible light.
The two great serenades for eight winds, K. 375 in E-flat and — well — K. 388 in C minor, occupy the crucial middle ground between functional entertainment and serious art.
K. 388 especially—dark, urgent, with that remarkable C minor intensity Mozart reserved for his most personal statements—demands more than polite attention. The Dutch octet (two oboes, two clarinets, two horns, two bassoons) attacks the opening "Allegro" with genuine bite.
There’s a Beethovenian severity to this music, composed in Vienna in 1782 when Mozart was establishing his independence from Salzburg’s constraints. The realization doesn’t quite match the COE’s refinement in the Gran Partita, but it conveys the work’s seriousness of purpose. Disc six ventures into genuinely odd territory.
The twelve horn duets K. 487 are… well, they’re horn duets.
Van de Merwe and Buurman play them with admirable precision, but these brief — pieces—hunting calls elevated to art music—offer limited rewards beyond demonstrating the players’ technical security. The Divertimento K. 188 for five trumpets and four timpani sounds exactly like what it is: a ceremonial fanfare stretched to fill six brief movements.
One hears it, admires the execution, and moves on. More substantial are the six notturni for soprano, alto, bass, and three basset horns. These vocal terzetti with wind accompaniment create an enchanting, slightly eerie atmosphere.
Clara de Vries, Jos Scholte, and Bas Ramselaar blend their voices with the winds in “Ecco quel fiero istante” and “Mi lagnerò tacendo” with affecting simplicity. The texts are conventional—love, longing, farewell—but Mozart’s part-writing shows the same instinctive genius that animated his operatic ensembles. These pieces deserve wider currency.
The recorded sound throughout (all but the Gran Partita recorded in spring 2001 at the Hervormde Kerk in Rhoon) maintains consistent quality. The Dutch church acoustic provides warmth without excessive reverberation. Arts Music Album Rotterdam’s engineering favors clarity and balance over atmospheric bloom—a sensible choice for wind music where timbral definition matters more than romantic halo.
The performances themselves reflect a certain Dutch pragmatism: technically secure, musically intelligent, not particularly distinctive. These aren’t readings that reveal hidden depths or
