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Mozart serenata HC21013
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Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART (1756-1791)
Serenata Notturna in D major, K. 239 (1776) [12:20]
Adagio and Allegro in F minor for a mechanical organ in a performing clock, K 594 (1790, arr. strings by Oskar Jockel) [10:18]
Adagio and Fugue in C minor for strings, K. 546 (1783/88) [7:05]
Eine kleine Nachtmusik – Serenade in G major for strings, K. 525 (1787, with extra minuet by Thomas Attwood) [21:39]
Berliner Barock Solisten
Reinhard Goebel
rec. 25-28 January 2021, Philharmonie Berlin, Kammermusiksaal
HÄNSSLER CLASSIC HC21013 [51:29]

Goebel is a quirky conductor, never dull, but he often strikes me as wilfully “different”. Much of the music on this disc suffers from over-emphasis, Goebel's vigour too easily turning into aggression. He is a formidable musician and scholar, but in his laudable avoidance of “pretty” Mozart he creates a noisy, door-banging alternative. As a big admirer of Harnoncourt's Mozart, I am certainly not averse to a robust approach, but Goebel is too consistently heavy-handed. Surely there has to be some gracefulness and lightness of touch. The Serenata Notturna has an unwelcome severity, the absence of charm and elegance particularly regrettable. This seems a misrepresentation of the music's essential character. The transcription of the F minor Adagio and Allegro has the feeling frozen out of it, sternness again replacing a more natural warmth. Kurt Sanderling once asked us (in the BSO) for a “friendly forte” in Mozart's Piano Concerto K 488. Goebel's Mozart is decidedly unfriendly – strangely brusque and unsmiling.

One might expect the Adagio and Fugue in C minor to be more suited to this conductor's style, but I find his performance perfunctory and unsatisfying. The opening is aggressive rather than dignified. The relentless, unyielding quality typical of much of Goebel's music-making is on show here.

The celebrated Eine kleine Nachtmusik begins with an Allegro played in a predominantly fierce manner. One would never guess that the serenade genre, in common with the divertimento and the rarer cassation or notturno, was intended to be entertainment music - essentially pleasing and undemanding. Apparently, Mozart originally planned a five-movement work, but the first minuet was torn from the autograph score. Goebel has inserted a replacement minuet, a piece which Mozart's pupil Thomas Attwood composed as an exercise and which Mozart “substantially enlarged or altered”, according to Goebel's booklet note. Sadly, this curiosity may well be my only motivation to return to this disc. The Romance is both stiff and restless. It is not merely Goebel's tempo – in itself difficult to live with – but, more crucially, also his charmless manner. Only in the final bars does he relax, ironically illustrating what has previously been missing. The well-known minuet is again rather stiff, while the trio has elephantine bass-playing. At last, in the concluding Allegro, Goebel shows that he does have a genial side, a refreshing reminder in contrast to the predominant severity in these performances.

As I generally find with Norrington (a personal bête-noire), Goebel seems to be saying to himself “Now what can we do to make this sound different, unconventional?”, rather than pursuing any strong inner conviction. (I may be doing him a disservice, but this is my impression.) To make over-familiar music sound fresh is a welcome ambition, but it is misguided if it tips over into perversity.

Playing on modern instruments in a historically informed style, the small, select group of Berliner Barock Solisten are superbly disciplined. In his booklet notes Goebel makes some good points rather heavily, so that what could have been interesting becomes polemical, hence a little boring.

Philip Borg-Wheeler

Previous review: Michael Cookson




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