Mozart’s ‘paris’ leads an exhilarating set of readings

ORCHESTRAL CHOICE

Mozart

Symphonies Nos 31 (‘Paris’) and 35 (‘Haffner’); Oboe Concerto*

Pentatone PTC 5187 059 64:50 mins

There can be no denying that Mozart’s second stay in Paris was a somewhat tumultuous period. At 21, he was no longer the child prodigy of his successful concert tour some 15 years earlier and Parisian reception was cool. Ever-canny, and despite his frustration at this new state of affairs, Mozart adapted his writing to Parisian taste.

The Symphony No. 31 in D Major (‘Paris’) was his first real French success, begun in stately fashion, and not without a certain elegant pomp, to appeal to an audience which was very different to that of his native Salzburg. The excellent period instrument Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, under concertmaster Bernhard Forck, treat it with due sophistication and restraint, in contrast to the rather dramatic Symphony No. 35, which bookends this recording.

Written some few years after Mozart’s Paris period, the result of a commission to celebrate the raising to the nobility of one Sigmund Haffner extrapolated as a symphony, it retains the festivity of its original purpose, the opening Allegro con spirito played by the Akademie with an invigorating bounce and a lovely depth of sound. The cleanness of tone on the recording is fine, with every orchestral instrument heard in excellent detail, whether sculpted gut strings or the vital immediacy of the wind sound in the intervening Harmoniemusik from Die Entführung aus dem Serail. It’s there too in the Oboe Concerto, the Andante understated and poised. The Akademie’s great clarity in this recording gives a frequently exhilarating sense of the finesse in Mozart’s musical architecture.

PERFORMANCE ★★★★

RECORDING ★★★★★

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Beethoven

Symphonies Nos 5 & 6

Kammerakademie Potsdam/ Antonello Manacorda Sony Classical G010004944623F (digital) 77:22 mins

How do you make Beethoven sound fresh? When a new recording of pieces like the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies comes out, that’s almost always the question I have in mind. The CD shelves and streaming sites are already stuffed with Beethoven done in all sorts of w