The main piece on this disc, Mozart's last and most richly worked Salzburg Divertimento, K334, receives a decent, competent performance; but I can't see too many reasons for preferring it to either of the other versions listed above. Though the Stockholm orchestra is an accomplished body, the strings sound too fat-toned for music originally conceived for solo instruments. Too often textures are insufficiently aereated, with the subtle colouring of the two horns going for very little. And beyond this, Welser-Most tends to rhythmic heaviness (try the leaden-footed, over-accented opening march for an extreme case) and rarely shows the affection, care for detail and touch of fantasy that illuminate both of the rival performances. At this speed the wonderful D minor variation movement can sometimes seem almost perfunctory, with the violin figuration in Vars. Nos. 1, 2 and 6 taking on a busy, mechanical quality. The famous third-movement minuet is stodgy, lacking the elegant lilt it needs; and the Adagio fourth movement is, like the variations, on the brisk side, with plain, rather graceless phrasing.
The Capriccio/Target version from Sandor Vegh and his hand-picked Salzburg orchestra seems to me altogether more lucid and alive despite the omission of the introductory March, K445, and several desirable repeats. The vari- ations may be a shade deliberate in Vegh's hands, but the figuration is far more expressively shaped than in the Stockholm performance; and despite his more leisurely tempo, Vegh's cunningly sprung rhythms make for a more truly vital reading of the finale. But best of all, to my mind, is the refined, supple and beautifully judged performance by the ASMF Chamber Ensemble on Philips, where the use of solo strings, as Mozart intended, allows for an intimacy of feeling and a delicate transparency of texture that will always elude orchestral readings of this music.
As a makeweight Welser-Most includes another work almost certainly composed for solo strings, the popular early Divertimento, K136, rapidly becoming one of Mozart's most recorded pieces. And in a crowded field this efficient but rather rigid, over-weighty reading (bass lines tend to chug too relentlessly) is hardly a front runner. All in all, then, a somewhat anonymous, uninspiring first collaboration between Welser-Most and his Stockholm players. The recording is generally smooth and pleasing, though detail is not always ideally clear, and the violins are apt to take on a slightly glassy quality high above the stave.'