Think "Sinfonia Concertante" and the first work likely to come to mind for most listeners is Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante, K. 364 for violin, viola, and orchestra. Of course, Mozart did not have exclusive lease over this form, nor was K. 364 his only foray into it. This album gives two other examples of the very popular format of multiple solo instruments and orchestra. The first is Haydn's B flat major (not B major as the liner erroneously asserts) Sinfonia Concertante for violin, cello, oboe, bassoon, and orchestra. The second is for oboe, clarinet, horn, bassoon, and orchestra. Although this second work is here attributed to Mozart, its exact authorship is not entirely clear. Both works are given surprisingly mediocre performances by the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and
Dresden Staatskapelle, respectively. The orchestral tuttis are adequate, but far from musically inspiring. The real downfall to this recording, however, is the very shoddy performance of the soloists. The four wind players for the Mozart do a sufficient job of matching articulation and phrasing, but intonation is problematic far more often than it should be. In the Haydn, intonation is a perpetual and wholly unacceptable issue, particularly in the amateurish-sounding performance given by the violin and cello soloists.