COMPOSERS: Leopold Mozart
LABELS: Naxos
WORKS: Sinfonia di caccia in G; Sinfonia pastorale in G; Sinfonia in G; Sinfonia in B flat; Sinfonia in F
PERFORMER: New Zealand CO/Donald Armstrong
CATALOGUE NO: 8.553347
From the point of view of musical history, the fact that Leopold Mozart sacrificed his compositional career to supervise the education of his vastly more gifted offspring seems no great loss. His ‘Hunting’ and ‘Pastoral’ Symphonies are genre pieces whose only memorable moments consist of picturesque effects crudely employed: Leopold asks for dogs barking and shouts of ‘ho ho’ from the performers, as well as the obligatory horns in the former, though the ‘Pastoral’ contains some admittedly spicy rusticity.
The remaining works, all in three movements, are competent but entirely routine specimens of the mid-18th-century symphony, with hardly an original bar. Clean, vital playing nevertheless from the orchestra, and bright, resonant sound. George Hall