Slice of heaven

Viktoria Mullova's new Mozart recording, playing three of the composer's violin concertos with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, is as close to heaven as it would seem possible to be in this life.

These sunny works have a unique lilt and spring to their step, and the Russian violinist makes it clear that any dancing is not to take place on the marble floors of a grand ballroom. With gut strings on her Stradivarius, these lissom scores aren't saturated with Viennese refinement: they're gutsy and exuberant. The musicians enjoy evoking the earthy graunch of the hurdy-gurdy but such moments are balanced by the finely spun poetry of the three slow movements.

The truly gorgeous Adagio from the G major Concerto is like an overheard conversation between Mullova and her colleagues. Immensely moving it may be, but there is nothing cloying here, with the soloist's beautifully textured low notes and those trills which add the most delicate of tensions.

The Andante cantabile from the D major concerto is almost unbearably poignant, although an emotional corrective is supplied by the crisply rhythmic playing. Too often with Mozart, the cadenza is simply a formality between two chords. On this recording, most of the cadenzas are written by Ottavio Dantone, the harpsichordist with Il Giardino Armonico. With some running as long as 90 seconds, these are miniature pieces in their own right.

A plaintive minor episode in the Cadenza for the first movement of K 216 casts the most elegant of rococo shadows, while the chromatic snake twisting its way through the first movement Cadenza in K 218 looks forward to that curious Gigue of K 574 that Tchaikovsky picked up for his Mozartiana Suite.

The sound is remarkably full-blooded (producer Andrew Cornall was behind the spectacular sonics of Cecilia Bartoli's latest Gluck recording). Warning: once you've experienced Mullova's magic, you may find it difficult to listen to any of her competitors.

Talking of Concertos, how nice to have access to John Ritchie's sparkling Clarinet Concertino in a recent Concert FM recording, with Marina Sturm playing the part that Frank Gurr made so much his own on the old Kiwi-Pacific album. You won't miss Aquarius: Music by John Ritchie on the shop shelf, with Boyd Webb's lustrous Aurora spilt across its cover, and thoughtfully reproduced without superimposed text in the booklet.

Sturm and the NZSO Chamber Orchestra play the Concertino with the perfect balance of affection and verve. The Finale has a particularly scampish cheekiness to it.

Also on this CD, which offers an overdue introduction to the veteran composer, are two string suites, which complement Lilburn's works of the 1940s and the rumbustious Papanui Road, which Marc Taddei and the NZSO literally and figuratively go to town on.

* Viktoria Mullova, Mozart (Philips 28947 02922). Aquarius: Music by John Ritchie (Trust MMT 2040).