Search - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Harald Nerat, Salzburg Chamber Orchestra :: Mozart: Serenades, K185 & K203

Two Very Fine Orchestral Serenades on Naxos

JohnL | Alexander, NC United States | 04/15/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"In Mozart's time, the serenade was an essentially occasional work, designed for evening entertainment or celebration. These compositions proved quite popular in Salzburg. A serenade would usually open and close with a march, and generally be entrusted primarily to the wind instruments. However, the form came to include indoor chamber or orchestral music. The latter is the case for both of these "early" serenades of W. A. Mozart. In his case, Mozart wrote both of these orchestral compositions as somewhat more elaborate than a divertimento. These serenades offer some very good music, finely crafted by the 17-year-old genius. He was to turn a "mature" age 18 by the time he wrote the second serenade performed on this CD. The first one on the disc, K. 185 was penned in the summer of 1773. It has seven movements with an amazing array of variety, as only Mozart could do. Two of the movements feature some solo work for violin, nicely played on this CD. These performances by the Salzburg Chamber Orchestra were recorded in the warm, reverberant acoustic of the Great Hall of the Salzburg Mozarteum. However, no detail is lost on this fine release from Naxos. The second Serenade K. 203, was written in August of 1774, and has eight excellent movements, with the score calling once again for some nice solo violin in three of them. Mozart was indeed maturing rapidly in a musical sense to be sure during this time period. Sandwiched in between his composing these two serenades, he penned Symphony No. 25 in G minor, a turning point in his development as a serious composer. Also, the wonderful Symphonies numbered 29 and 30 were written shortly before the Serenade K. 203. You will be delighted at every turn when listening to both of these sunny works (both in the key of D Major). Naxos once again provides us with a great quality CD at a very enjoyable price. The Penguin Guide gave this a 3-star review, which they deem as "outstanding in every way". Strongly recommended also by this Amazon reviewer."