SCO Winds - Mozart: Divertimenti - The Sunday Times

Mozart's wind divertimenti, scored for pairs of clarinets, bassoons and horns, are arguably the classiest background music ever written (to accompany archiepiscopal banquets in Salzburg); but the E flat Serenade, usually heard in its wind octet version, with added oboes, is a masterpiece whose opening movement lasts for more than 10 minutes. It compels attention with its bold harmonic shifts, and arrests the ear with its serene adagio. The SCO wind soloists play the rare original scoring for six players - darker in timbre and sparer in texture - with brio.