Look closely at this disc before buying -- the
Camerata Bern (or Camerata Berne, it's spelled on the inside) billing on the cover applies only to one of the two discs. The second disc, dating from nine years later, is performed by the wind group
Consortium Classicum. The two discs don't really hang together aside from having
Mozart's chamber music as a common element. The
Camerata Bern versions of the two serenades known as the "Lodron Night Music" and "Second Lodron Night Music" are done with a small orchestra rather than with the horns and four-player string groups
Mozart specified. The performances are pleasant but rather shapeless, enjoyable in the background music function for which these serenades were originally intended. The second disc is a different story, with distinctive, fully elaborated performances of
Mozart's two greatest wind serenades, works whose interest is partly in how totally they transcend the serenade genre without entirely losing sight of it. The
Consortium Classicum performances are both unusual. The Serenade in E flat major, K. 375, is given a gentle, deliberate, yet richly detailed reading that beautifully brings out
Mozart's night-music effects at the ends of phrases. The group pushes tempos just the slightest bit as the music proceeds, giving a kind of rhythm that's nicely evocative of a group of players performing a concert in a garden during the evening. The extremely problematical Serenade in C minor, K. 388, often played with a sort of despairing agitation, is taken quite quickly, especially in the first movement, for more of a dry, architectural approach that lends a very edgy liveliness to the work, especially to the canonic Minuet. Although not really a logical two-disc pairing, this release is worth the price for the fine performances on the second disc alone.