Sweet Serenade

The Timeless Music of Mozart

ABC Classics 476 9422

TPT: 76’ 52”

Reviewed by Alice Woode

By even the most stringent of critical standards, this collection is a winner. Sixteen tracks deliver a most satisfying and wide-ranging overview of some of Mozart’s most soothing musical ideas.

Brimming with fine performances, most of them by Australian musicians, the collection takes the listener across many of Mozart’s musical landscapes.

Millions would instantly recognise the andante movement from Eine Kleine Nachtmusik played by the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra conducted by Geoffrey Lancaster. And Soave sia il vento (from Cosi fan tutte) is sung with extraordinary refinement of taste and beauty of tone. The first track on the CD, it is like a consecration of what is to follow. David Westlake does wonders with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in the slow movement from the Clarinet Concerto – glorious music offered at a very high level of accomplishment. And later on, there is a no less persuasive reading of the larghetto from the Clarinet Quintet but in the unusual guise of a string quintet; it’s a glorious offering. Oboist extraordinaire Diana Doherty weaves her usual musical spell in yet another arrangement, with its special focus on oboe, of a Mozart original: the adagio from Gran Partita.

There’s much else to delight and sooth the senses in this generous compilation of 16 tracks.

There is always a risk in collections of this sort, for performances to lapse into honeyed sentimentality. The compilers, though, have avoided this trap and done a first class job in their selections, not one of which can be faulted on the grounds of either technical ability or interpretative maturity.

For those seeking an hour or more of mostly serene and gentle music, this excellent addition to ABC Classics’ “The timeless music of ………..” series is warmly recommended.

Copyright Alice Woode 2007

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