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| Teldec (Full price) (LP) AZ6 43063 (Cassette) CY4 43063 (CD) ZK8 43063. |
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| LPO, Schonzeler (9/77) (8/84R) CFP414641 |
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| VPO, Levine (8/83) 2532 098 |
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As I remarked two years or so ago, when reviewing James Levine's DG recording, the Posthorn Serenade, the last and probably the finest of the nine large-scale orchestral serenades or divertimentos that Mozart composed in Salzburg between 1769 and 1779 has, rightly, been fairly well treated by the record companies (in recent years, at any rate), although older versions tend to drop out of circulation as new ones appear.
Nikolaus Harnoncourt's approach to Mozart is never less than provocative, and often revelatory, and his Posthorn is a most distinguished one, with the splendid Staatskapelle, Dresden, responding magnificently to his sense of drama and his keen feeling for orchestral texture and nuance. The brass are characteristically prominent (though the posthorn, in its solitary appearance in the second Minuet's second Trio, is somewhat distant and tentative) and the woodwinds play their concertante parts in the third and fourth movements most eloquently. Harnoncourt does not always seem to me to me to hit on exactly the right tempo: the Rondeau (the second of the two concertante movements), for instance, is a shade heavy and just misses the lilting, dance-like quality it surely ought to have; and the second Minuet's first Trio (with the missing piccolo part appropriately filled in, so that it doubles the violins two octaves higher) is taken at a disconcertingly faster tempo than both the Minuet itself and the second Trio. But elsewhere Harnoncourt's reading is very impressive indeed: with a first movement of tremendous span and stature, a smouldering D minor Andante (with both repeats observed) and a fiery concluding Presto. He also frames the Serenade with the two Marches Mozart almost certainly intended as entrance and exit music (K335/320a), to whose already piquant scoring he adds timpani parts that are entirely appropriate when the orchestra is stationary and not on the move.
Of the two versions lised above Levine's still strikes me as coming about as close to perfection in the Serenade as anyone can: he is the only other conductor to observe both repeats in the fifth movement (without which it loses much of its impact) and throughout the work his feeling for tempo is, to my ears, absolutely impeccable. The only disadvantage of his version is that he does not give us the two Marches but the over-familiar Eine kleine Nachtmusik instead. Hans-Hubert Schonzeler (on CfP) does include the Marches (without drums), but although it has many attractive features his performance tends to favour quick tempos and is rather light-weight: certainly by comparison with Harnoncourt's, which is, I should mention, recorded with the clarity and immediacy appropriate to such a penetrating interpretation.
RG