Mozart: Three Divertimenti for Strings; Serenata Notturna.(Sound recording review)

Mozart: Three Divertimenti for Strings; Serenata Notturna. Neville Marriner, Academy of St. Martinin-the-Fields. First Impression Music FIM XR24 071.

After listening to the first track on this disc, the Divertimento in D, K. 136, and picking my jaw up off the floor, I turned to the booklet note, where the XRCD's producer, Winston Ma, says "I consider the string tone and nuance of this recording the best from my entire collection, including all other labels." This is no mere hyperbole. I found the disc perhaps the best recording of a small chamber orchestra I've ever heard. Be forewarned, however: The recording is fairly close. If your speakers are at all forward or bright, you might not appreciate what you hear. On my VMPS RM-40s, the sound was delicious.

Of course, for any remastering like this one to sound good, the engineers have to start with good source material, and here is one of the ingredients of the present success. If you're old enough to remember the excitement Neville Marriner generated back in the sixties and early seventies with his Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields recordings of early music, done long before the period-instruments crowd co-opted the subject, you'll feel some of that excitement again in this FIM recording. Marriner recorded the Divertimenti and the Serenata Notturna in 1968 and ...