KEY POINTS:
Rating: * * * * *
Ranking the stars in Archiv's new set of the Mozart Violin Concertos is a task and a half. Giuliano Carmignola made his name fronting the prestigious Venice Baroque Orchestra and is a violinist with a particular penchant for Vivaldi. Carmignola deals his music out lean and lithe, although he is as happy relaxing in a gorgeous lyrical spin as he is to sprint through his scales and arpeggios.
You can hear his form in Mozart's first cadenza and he is an inevitable inspiration to the orchestra around him. Conductor Claudio Abbado is best known as a Mahler man, but he pares down his forces here, his first outing with his new Mozart Orchestra, using authentic instruments and period performance styles.
Highlight follows highlight throughout the double set. The Presto from Mozart's B flat Concerto is manic in its energy, caught in an Italian recording with microphones seeming to hover just over the instruments to catch the attack of bow on string.
Woodwind are up front and occasionally downright assertive. But in the Adagio from the G major Concerto, one of Mozart's loveliest slow movements, they seem to coo like doves, while string triplets have never throbbed more fetchingly.
Violist Danusha Waskiewicz joins the Italian for the Sinfonia Concertante, which is a gem. From the very start, you feel every note and phrase have been reconsidered while the forward momentum of the slow movement keeps a firm hand on the possibility of any Viennese gemutlichkeit seeping through. A delicious outing, to be savoured in generous daily doses.
William Dart
