Back in the early days of digital recording,
Octophoros -- the remarkable Flemish wind band with the strikingly original name -- made a handful of recordings for the Accent label. A couple of them -- a wind arrangement of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony and a disc of "Janissary" (pseudo-Turkish) music by Rossetti, Spohr, and Beethoven -- were bright, brilliant, and often delightful. One of them -- a pairing of Mozart and Beethoven's quintets for winds and piano -- was well played but only occasionally entertaining. But a couple of them -- those presented here of Mozart's Gran Partita and Sextet Divertimenti -- were then and remain now as good as it gets. In both works, the playing is technically impeccable and utterly natural, so much so that the music seems not so much performed but rather improvised fresh on the spot. That the musicians are playing original instruments adds immeasurably to the tonal beauty and takes nothing away from their technical ability. Although the Gran Partita has received many fine performances over the years from
Furtwängler with the
Vienna Philharmonic through
Mackerras with the
Orchestra of St. Luke's, this performance ranks with the best of them. And although it is of early digital vintage, Accent's sound is rich, full, deep, and warm.