Mozart Serenades - Metro

The Scottish Chamber Orchestra has become the favourite ensemble of Glasgow-based Linn Records - and it's not hard to hear why. On their latest CD, Mozart Serenades, they play with precision, accuracy and wit, and the Linn engineers catch the many sparkling facets of their sound brilliantly. Alexander Janiczek, who leads the ensemble from the violin, also plays the solos extremely gracefully. For all that, the repertoire choice seems a tad uninspired. Mozart wrote the two most substantial pieces on the recording (the Divertimento in E flat K.113 and the Andretter Serenade K.185) aged 15 and 17 respectively. They're pleasant enough but they don't grip the ear in the way that later works do.